


When Lies Turn into Truth

by ForgottenJuliett



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Ravenclaw!Harry, Slash, grey!Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-10-23
Packaged: 2017-11-07 05:12:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 54,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/427246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForgottenJuliett/pseuds/ForgottenJuliett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Have you ever wanted someone so bad it hurt? Gradually, Tom Marvolo Riddle discovers all the sides to obsessive insanity when he meets his year mate Harry Potter. Lily and James alive, no BWL, no bashing (probably). HPLV. NOT!Time-travel<br/>A brief redo of Tom's years at Hogwarts. Will be more detailed when he hits 5th year where actual relationship between Harry and Tom starts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1. The Heart of Everything.**

Tom Riddle hated rain and snow. It was even worse when the two types of weather combined to make his life hell.

 

At least, the boy believed that it couldn’t be a coincidence his birthday would be both rainy and snowy, and he couldn’t leave the wretched place he had been forced to call home for ten years now.

 

It was no secret at the orphanage that on such cold days as this one it was prudent not to bother him. A flock of foolish cowards, they were. Utterly pathetic and ready to do anything to fall into his good graces.

 

The boy sniffed, lying on his bed, and wrapped himself up in one more blanket. It was thin, and didn’t really make him feel any warmer than before, but at least its weight soothed him and made the violent trembling go away. He sneered at the pathetic feelings of weakness licking at his stomach.

 

Harsh winds were blowing through the windows, which didn’t protect the inhabitants of the orphanage from the cold and the caprices of weather at all.

 

Thus, no one was surprised when half the population of the orphanage was brought down by illnesses – mostly a simple cold, but some children also had the hints of developing pneumonia and antritis. Fortunately, Tom had only slight fever and a running nose – nothing more.

 

To the devastation of the rest. They would love to see him down and crush him in his moment of weakness, like the vultures they were.

 

From his early childhood Tom had found that he was special. No one was like him. The other children didn’t have his special talents and were inferior to him in all ways.

 

He could make things move without touching them. He could make animals do what he wanted without training them. He could make bad things happen to people who were mean to him.

 

His revenge – always rightful, of course, he never made any mistakes – was frightening and the mere idea of it forced others to treat him with the respect he deserved, afraid to make a sound out of line.

 

Whatever he wanted – he got it. No one dared to disobey or take back the things he had robbed them of. The chilling to the bones fear they held prevented them from talking against him. Only once had a boy whose rabbit had been hung on Tom’s whim went to the caretakers to deal a complaint.

 

Needless to say that he regretted his decision up to that time.

 

Being cooped up in hospital for four years now, unable to eat or drink without his throat hurting, to walk himself, to dress himself, to get up from his own bed… Certainly did leave enough time for thinking about the mistakes one had made in life.

 

Tom sneered at the remembrance, the scared eyes of Billy Stubb springing to his mind. The only good thing about the memory was the pleasant tingling he had felt while willing the boy’s bones to break one by one, slowly and excruciatingly. The sound of his pained screams was still ringing in Tom’s ears.

 

Breathless, Tom pulled out a letter from beneath his pillow. He knew it wasn’t sensible to leave it there for the whole world to see, but couldn’t do anything about it. There was this unreasonable longing burning deep inside his heart that made him caress the worn envelope.

 

In his hands Tom was holding the very first letter he had received in his short life.

 

A pity that it was from officials of some kind – school stuff were still considered that, right? – he wouldn’t mind receiving one from another person-

 

Tom hit himself on the hand lightly. “Snap out of it,” he muttered, despising himself for his desire.

 

As long as he remembered, there was a rule in the orphanage – never trust anyone but yourself. Everyone was ready to betray someone else for a pat on the shoulder from the caretakers, who were like wardens in a prison.

 

The warden likes you – you get some additional blankets or clothes or portions of food. If not… Well, all the deaths could be written off as an accident or some disease. God knew no one ever checked.

 

And Tom had learned this rule well.

 

In the beginning, when he was a mere child, much younger than now both in body and in spirit, he had longed to be friends with someone yet couldn’t figure out how friendship worked. Its mechanics were a complete mystery to him.

 

He observed others and couldn’t stand their naivety, their constant cheerfulness and the way they blabbered on and on day in day out. He did try to fit in, at first, but had given up on that after first few tries, the belief that he would never find anyone like himself settling firmly into his mind.

 

Who would compare to him, after all? None of those stupid, immature, bubbling idiots could be in any way equal to him. They couldn’t rival him in wits, in appearance, in manners and couldn’t do the same things he did – like forcing someone to commit a deed this person didn’t want to or give away their possessions to him as a present.

 

Tom had even invented a game – to compel someone to donate their most priceless belonging to him and, when they wanted it back, blistering with rage and spitting indignantly, he would smile innocently and say they had presented it to him and how disappointed he was at their stinginess.

 

It always worked, somehow. Whenever he smiled sweetly and talked politely, he didn’t have to use compulsion to get what he wanted most of the time.

 

It was becoming rather boring, to be frank.

 

 _‘Though not anymore,’_ Tom thought with glee, opening the envelope and reaching for the letter inside. The emerald green ink had faded, but Tom could still make out the words on it.

 

It also brought the memories of the man who had delivered it, the freakish man dressed in purple and yellow, who had been smiling too much and too kindly before he exchanged his first words with Tom.

 

The boy had disliked this Albus Dumbledore immediately and felt smug when he saw the smile slipping from the man’s face after Tom expressed his views on other people- _muggles_ and the like. Then the man’s face became closed off, like a concrete wall, not an emotion breaking through.

 

Tom preferred it like that, to be frank.

 

Re-reading the text once again and feeling a thrill of anticipation piercing through him, Tom settled in a nest of pillows and blankets he had snatched from his fellow orphans. His last thought before drifting off into the dreamless nap was speculations about what this school of magic would be like.

 

XXX

 

Tom tugged at his uncomfortable robes he hadn’t yet gotten used to. They were constricting and left his, eghm, private parts open for the wind to breeze through – not something he was particularly happy or impressed about.

 

He guessed he simply had to get used to it, just like he had gotten used to saying ‘Merlin’ or ‘Morgana’ instead of ‘God’, to calligraphy – even with a quill instead of a pen his writing was still neat and lines perfectly straight just like his teeth were – and to wizard’s general ignorance in regards of muggle culture.

 

What concerned Tom, as much as he wanted to forget all about those filthy ignominious sub-people, every piece of knowledge was important.

 

He had read real life accounts about how pureblood families forsake their children just because they didn’t want to use muggle means, despite the possibility of salvation. It was obviously much easier for a pureblood mother to bear the loss of her son if it meant he wouldn’t be touched by those ‘paws of wretched muggles and their vile inventions’.

 

Tom had no scruples against using muggle technology when needed, a fact that could give him upper hand some time later in life.

 

The wind blew again, and Tom covered his face with his hand to shield himself from the grains of sand and dust it carried. Scowling, he brushed a lock of his dark brown hair back into his perfectly combed hairstyle.

 

He was standing in front of the barrier between the platforms 9 and 10. According to that motley creepy man, the entrance was right there. Tom could see it – after just a few minutes of observing he had seen a hundred of people coming to and from the wall.

 

Couldn’t wizards be more careful?

 

Tom had noticed a couple of police officers looking suspiciously at the barrier. While they couldn’t exactly see wizards travelling through the wall, dissipating in its bricks, it was fishy that so much people would swarm around a seemingly uninteresting barrier between two platforms, especially when others were void of crowds.

 

Tom straightened out his robes and straightened himself. He had never hunched, but this time he had to pay even greater attention towards his appearance – it should be impeccable.

 

His robes were immaculate, shining with cleanness, not a dirty spot on them. Dark brown tresses parted to a side, not a hair out of place anymore. Boots polished and wand carefully tucked in the holder, he was a picture of perfection – just like he should be.

 

Tom ignored occasional odd glances people were throwing his way because of his appearance. Most seemed to think he was an actor of some kind, anyway, – the platform was full of weirdly-dressed people today.

 

He knew that most muggleborns – and as much as it pained to admit it, he was one, too - usually chose to change on the train, but Tom was too… embarrassed to undress in front of anybody, be it a boy or a girl. He wasn’t ashamed of his body, per say, but reluctant to show it to some strangers.

 

He stepped forward and in a moment passed through the barrier.

 

A whirlwind of colours – and he was in a buzz of another kind. People were talking, mothers were crying, not wanting to part with their child for the most part of the year, children were shouting to each other, things like ‘hurry up or the train will go away’, fathers were cheering their sons and daughters proudly, pleased with them receiving their magical education at one of the best educational establishments in Europe.

 

All these sounds created a cacophony, which hurt Tom’s ears, sensitive to sounds. The boy didn’t allow his face to grimace or show any other sign of discomfort.

He had read in books about purebloods and how they valued endurance, power, and the purity of blood.

 

While Tom lacked the latter and couldn’t correct his upbringing or ancestry, he had a hunch that he would be powerful; even that wand shop owner had told him so. He also knew he would gain wealth over the course of time. And endurance…

 

Let this be a test for him. If he were to indeed become as powerful as he expected himself to be, he would need to lead and to order people and to make them do things they don’t want to. He had no doubt that some would be offended and their shouts of fury and possibly even physical attempts at harming him would be more difficult to fend off than the mild annoyance he felt now in regards of all this buzz.

 

Grabbing his trunk tighter, Tom set his jaw in determination and moved forward, to the scarlet train.

 

Yes, he would become great one day.

 

He was certain of it.

 

XXX

 

“Firs' years! Firs' years over here!” A giant man was shouting, waving one of his hands and holding a bobbing lamp with another.

 

Tom couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t use a spell to light up the way, but judging by the stupid expression the giant wore – _smiling_ , of all things! – the buffoon would confuse his wand with an ordinary stick. The boy scowled darkly, hating the stupidity of others, yet used to it.

 

"C'mon, follow me - any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!”

 

They did as told and followed the man to the lake, black in the darkness of the night. Evening mist was covering the view of the castle. They gathered around the big hairy man, looking at him questioningly.

 

“I’ve read about this lake in Hogwarts, A History,” a bushy-haired girl whispered loudly to someone next to her.

 

Tom sneered in annoyance. He had found out she was a mudblood and a nosy one to boot. He had been sitting with her and a fat boy the whole train ride, and they had almost driven him mad – the girl with her annoying opinions on the Wizarding World he hadn’t asked for and the boy with his continuous questions about his frog.

 

 _‘Just get rid of the damn thing already,’_ Tom thought with aggravation, glaring at the squeaking boy when one of the students barely evaded stepping on the frog. _‘I would have tolerated their presence more if they were of some use to me.’_

Alas, he had found that neither bore any particular standing in the Wizarding World and a waste of time and effort to be on good terms with.

 

He had people to charm and couldn’t waste away on someone like that.

 

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore.

 

Tom got into the same boat as the toad-boy, the bushy-haired bookworm, and a boy with fiery red hair, whose face was of almost the same colour and who was talking too loudly and too animatedly.

 

What companions he had to put up with.

 

“Everyone in? Then, let’s go!”

 

The boats glided across the lake and, as they got near, the outlines of the castle became less blurred. Tom heard someone gasp at the magnificent view while his companions were all staring like fools with open mouths at the sight. He would never lower himself to do something so common.

 

The fleet of boats arrived, and they were free to stand up and feel the solid ground underneath their feet. Tom was relieved. He had never really like swimming or sailing in a boat. The loss of the earth made him anxious and alarmed.

 

The huge oak doors swung open and revealed a tall black-haired woman. Her emerald green robes accentuated the strictness of her face. Her, Tom rather liked. She seemed different from that Dumbledore man and oaf Hagrid.

 

“The Firs’ years, Professor McGonagall,” the oaf said respectfully, bowing to the woman a bit.

 

 _‘So, she must be the Deputy Headmistress,’_ Tom deduced, staring hungrily at the way the giant all but plastered down for the woman. Someday, he would hold the same power, only more of it.

 

“Thank you, Hagrid.” The woman nodded politely, a smile never once crossing her stern face. “Let me take it from here.”

 

She turned around and motioned for the children to follow her. Tom could see some blond kid with two boys, more like bodyguards rather than friends, lining him, whisper something degrading at the woman’s back and point a finger at her.

 

Without turning around, she waved her wand and their lips sealed shut, only incoherent mumbles getting through.

 

Tom leaned in. It seemed like a useful spell to know. He made a mental note to himself to look it up in the library as soon as possible.

 

Professor McGonagall showed them into a small room off the hall, forcing them to stand really close. They awaited her words patiently.

 

“"Welcome to Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall. “The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room."

 

This was the same stuff Tom had already read in the _Hogwarts, A History_. Feeling bored, he chose to glance around the room at his yearmates to kill time.

 

Some, he had seen at the train station or in the train itself. The female mudblood bookworm was nodding pompously at every word the Deputy Headmistress was saying, obviously agreeing. Her lips moved as in a prayer, repeating everything breathlessly.

 

Everyone was listening attentively to the woman drone on and on about house points, houses, and house cups. The rivalry appeared to be quite silly to Tom – why would someone divide students according to the features they can all lose in the long run?

 

 _‘Wizards’ logic,’_ Tom decided grimly, studiously disregarding the fact that he himself was a wizard.

 

His attention was attracted by the only other student who wasn’t standing there gaping like a fish at the information provided. Tom’s eyes flashed in interest as he eyed the boy appreciatively.

 

The boy’s hair was the blackest black and eyes were the colour of fresh green grass. He was thin and petit, small even for his age, and his shoulder blades seemed so thin that Tom feared they would snap from one touch.

 

He caught himself just in time to understand that he was openly admiring a person other than himself, further than that, _fearing_ for this person’s health, what hadn’t happened to him in all his years of living. Tom forced himself to look away.

 

But even when ghosts flew in the room and began what Tom would soon learn a traditional spectacle of introducing newcomers to Hogwarts, his eyes constantly drifted to the other boy, hungrily drinking in every reaction, every small gesture or a tiny change of facial expression, which, admittedly, wasn’t much – the boy appeared to be as emotionless as Tom was, unfortunately.

 

Yet the outward temperance couldn’t hide a mischievous spark in the boy’s eyes, which intrigued Tom and drove him mad with speculations about how it could be applied.

 

When they all stepped forth into the Great Hall, a resplendent place, even Tom had to admit, and grouped together while waiting for McGonagall to pull out her parchment with names written over it, he couldn’t help but move closer to his objective, stepping almost into this person’s private bubble.

 

Up closer, the other boy was even more stunning, with sharp aristocratic features and a perfectly sculptured face, which was scrunched up in concentration as the boy took in the beautiful ceiling over them. His rich clothes, straight posture, and the way he held himself showed Tom that the boy was a pureblood. He couldn’t believe just how pleased the thought made him feel.

 

When he would be creating his own kingdom without any filth corrupting it, he wouldn’t need to annihilate the boy.

 

As if sensing someone’s presence behind him, the smaller wizard whirled around, brilliant eyes filled with wonder. He tilted his head, lips twisting to ask something, and Tom’s heart rate accelerated in excitement at the knowledge that he would hear the boy’s voice, but the Sorting Hat began its song. The raven-haired boy, with a lingering knowing look, went back to watching the events unfolding in front of him.

 

Disappointed at himself for losing his chance, at his new weakness, and at the boy for making him feel this, Tom clapped as loudly as everyone else when the song ended and the Sorting began.

 

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

 

"When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott, Hannah!"

 

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment's pause-

 

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.

 

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Tom sneered at the antics, not understanding why they had to be so loud about it.

 

"Bones, Susan!"

 

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat again, and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

 

"Boot, Terry!"

 

"RAVENCLAW!"

 

The table second from the left clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them.

 

" Brocklehurst, Mandy" went to Ravenclaw too, but "Brown, Lavender" became the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers.

 

"Bulstrode, Millicent" then became a Slytherin.

 

"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"

 

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

 

"Finnigan, Seamus," the sandy-haired boy next to Tom in the line, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.

 

"Granger, Hermione!"

 

The bushy-haired mudblood almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head.

 

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat. Tom heard someone groan.

 

When Neville Longbottom, the boy who kept losing his toad, was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The hat took a long time to decide with Neville. When it finally shouted, "GRYFFINDOR," Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to "MacDougal, Morag."

 

“Malfoy, Draco!”

 

The blond boy, whose mouth was still shut as if sewn up by invisible threads, swaggered forward. The Hat took a moment to place him in Slytherin.

 

There weren't many people left now. "Moon" "Nott" "Parkinson" then a pair of twin girls, "Patil" and "Patil" then “Perks, Sally-Anne" and then, at last - "Potter, Harry!"

 

The raven-haired boy walked to the stool, sitting on it gracefully. Tom imprinted the name firmly into his memory. He doubted he would ever forget it.

 

This was also a perfect opportunity to study the boy, Harry, drinking in his features. Tom consoled himself that he was doing it simply because the boy, as an obvious pureblood, would be a good ally to have.

 

“RAVENCLAW!” the Hat shouted at last, after tense moments of contemplation. Tom didn’t let frustration tear at him.

 

He _would_ find a way to talk to the boy.

 

Just for the purpose of gaining an ally, of course.

 

Waiting for his turn, Tom watched dispassionately as the boy strode to the Ravenclaw table. Was it a figment of his imagination, or did the Ravenclaws really clap louder than they had done before?

 

“Riddle, Tom!”

 

Schooling his features into well-bred blankness he had seen purebloods use, Tom sauntered towards the Sorting Hat and placed it on his brown hair.

 

“Hmm…” It took Tom all his willpower not to cringe at the abrupt appearance of the voice in his head. He only gripped the stool tighter.

 

“Let’s see… A good mind you have here, but your knowledge will never be for the good of the humankind. Rather, you are the one to invent the Unforgivables.”

 

Tom smirked slightly at that. He didn’t know what the Unforgivables were, but sounded good.

 

“I can’t throw you to Hufflepuff. Merlin knows what you’ll do to them, poor things. And I can’t see any particular bravery or desire to help in you – you’d rather let someone drown to save yourself. This leaves me with one choice, especially because of your talent.”

 

“SLYTHERIN!” the Hat shouted loudly for the whole population of Howarts to hear.

 

The claps coming from the Slytherin table weren’t as loud as were their wary whispers, the eyes of the Slytherins mistrustful and borderline hostile when he neared them.

 

His face showed nothing; Tom refused to be cowed by those, whose intellectual and power level was inferior to his, no matter what kind of family they came from.

 

Instead, he focused on the petit figure sitting at the table across the Hall.

 

He observed the way the boy smiled shyly in response to something said to him, and the way his cheeks tinged a bit with pink. Tom didn’t know how he could notice it from such a distance away, but he noticed everything about this boy, no matter how small or inconspicuous the detail was.

 

He scowled, throwing all thoughts about wanting that Potter boy concentrate his attention on him out of his head, and grabbed his fork.

 

Tomorrow.

 

He would work on it tomorrow. He would talk to the boy and discover the reason he didn’t let Tom live his life normally.


	2. Just a Step Away

**Chapter 2. Just a Step Away.**

“Theo, know any good hexes to use on this mudblood?”

Tom was lying on his bed, his dark eyes half-lidded as he listened intently to what his housemates were saying. He looked at his watch in annoyance. It was time to go down for breakfast soon but he was reluctant to leave while his housemates were there.

When he had first heard of acrid controversies between mudbloods and purebloods, he hadn’t expected to be confronted with such a wave of enmity from the people he was supposed to trust.

Tom wasn’t a coward; had he known any hexes or curses, he would have had nothing to worry about. Alas, their number exceeded his lonely presence and the boy wasn’t thrilled about being humiliated by a spell.

“Better not risk it. You know how Dumbledore is. The mudblood will go to him, and the old coot will go whine to the Board. My father would be unhappy if he had to hear about someone attacked because of me.”

“You have always been a pansy, Draco,” Blaise Zabini, a dark-skinned curly-haired boy sneered contemptuously, glaring at his interlocutor from beneath the dark fringe. “It’s a wonder you’ve made it into Slytherin.”

“Don’t insult me! If my father finds out-“

“Yeah, yeah. We know. Good Merlin, Draco, do you tell your father even how many times you go to piss? Honestly, you are unbearable!”

From behind the curtains, Tom felt the same way, hating how he agreed with Theodore Nott, a boy not burdened with astonishing intellectual abilities.

“You-!“

“Anyway, what are we going to do with the mudblood?” someone butted in impatiently.

 _‘Idiots,’_ Tom thought mockingly, his hands gripping the edges of his light green blanket. _‘I can hear you, you know. If you are going to assassinate me, do it_ discreetly _.’_

Not that he wouldn’t be able to thwart any plan they threw at him.

“Dunno. Poison him or something? Mother always does that when someone annoys her. Usually it’s her husbands. She has quite the _collection_. Of poisons, I mean.”

_‘I’d better check my goblet next time. Should I buy a flask for myself? Doesn’t seem too bad of an idea. I should definitely remember it this summer when I go to that Diagon Alley.’_

“No one doubted your mother’s _skills_ , Blaise. But I think she will notice if one of her precious vials gets stolen.”

“Listen here, people!” Draco Malfoy exclaimed. “Why waste all this good stuff on a mudblood?”

“The mudblood is an eyesore!”

“I agree with Goyle, no matter how retarded it sounds. The mudblood will bring us nothing but trouble. Mordred knows they are uneducated barbarians. I bet Salazar Slytherin weeps in his grave to have one in his honourable house.”

 _‘You know my name! Use it!’_ Tom thought angrily and balled his thin childish fingers into fists, not used to this kind of treatment. The orphanage had been different.

“Dead can’t do it, can they? Weep?”

“Sure, they can’t, Vincent. It’s a figure of speech. I won’t use the word ‘metaphorical’ ‘cause I know you won’t know what it means in any case.” Crabbe responded an exasperated Malfoy with a dull glance.

“Let’s go have breakfast, guys,” Nott proposed, motioning to the door. “Leave the mudblood here. Who knows, he might die of oversleeping.”

“Only you would think of such idiocies like this one, Theo.” Zabini scoffed soundly, shaking his head in disapproval.

“Hey, it could be true! My Uncle…” Their voices drifted off as the boys left the room one by one, leaving a seething Tom alone.

When he was sure they were gone, he crawled out of his bed and stretched, getting ready to start his first day in a magical school. He wasn’t impressed with the reception, but realized that others couldn’t see his potential from his appearance.

He had to prove himself to them, of that he had no doubt. Loyalty was hard to come by these days, and the boy was contemplating different ways of acquiring it while brushing his teeth and going through his morning rituals.

Tom scowled, remembering the blabbering fools who prided themselves in being purebloods. If this was what native wizarding folk was like, no wonder that muggles were the prevailing race. It just showed how those mudblood supremacists were right in their opinion that muggles and wizards were alike.

Their shared idiocy was a perfect bonder.

Once again, Tom’s thoughts drifted to the black-haired boy from the evening before, Harry Potter, his name was. Would he be like them? Completely and utterly useless and dull? Or would he be something else entirely? More like Tom himself, perhaps?

The brown-haired boy was fastening the clasp on his black and green school robes when he realized he was once again devoting too much time to thinking about someone other than himself, potential ally or not. He pinned up his Slytherin badge to his robes, and the pin grazed his creamy skin lightly, drawing blood.

Tom skewered it with a glare, knowing that there was no time to do anything about it – he had designed a certain schedule for himself, and his descend to the Great Hall had to begin now.

For some people a scraped hand would be a mere nuisance, but to Tom, who strived to be the epitome of flawlessness, it was one more imperfection in addition to his tainted ancestry. Not to mention that it reminded him too much of those little children who played often with each other and had scratches like that all over their bodies along with other mild injuries.

He looked at himself in the mirror: classical features, expressionless face, dark eyes, immaculate robes, and polished shoes. And a scratch on his hand, its bloody red contrasting starkly with his pale complexion.

Would Potter notice it?

Tom pinched himself lightly to get his mind off the topic.

Even if Potter did, it’s not like it would matter to Tom. He needed no one’s approval or disapproval, because he was certain he would hold a position of power in the Wizarding World. He wasn’t sure which one yet: he didn’t know much about wizarding professions. He wanted it to be a substitute for a muggle politician – a career in which people would be begging him to accept them, to acknowledge them.

Dark eyes flashing in anger – was it a trick of light or were they red for a moment? – Tom wiped the blood off his hand with a handkerchief and stomped down the stairs to have breakfast.

XXX

His housemates were finishing with their meal, only crumbles left on their plates. They were talking animatedly with one another, some arguing, some gesticulating wildly to prove their point, others simply staring off into space or whispering with their companions in hushed tones.

Tom supposed it was still better than Gryffindors – those were howling with laughter at something two gingers were showing. A curly-haired boy sitting next to them opened up a match box slightly, and a couple of girls bolted up from their seats screaming.

Unfortunately, Tom’s placement at his table – between a blond girl named Daphne Greengrass, the only one not minding a mudblood near her, and Goyle, who wasn’t that much of a company – didn’t give him an adequate view of the object in the matchbox. Craning his neck like a prying fool was out of question – what respected man would commit such an undignified gesture?

A shame. In the box could be something Tom could use to hurt or threaten others with.

 _‘Potter is not here,’_ Tom thought absently while shuffling some stewed carrots around the plate. He wasn’t overly precautious with his goblet yet, so he had no trouble washing the food down. Even if his classmates _had_ decided to assassinate him for his blood, they wouldn’t have had the time to receive a package from their homes or steal it from the Potions Master.

Speaking about Potions Masters…

Professor Severus Snape, a man with greasy black hair and yellowish waxy skin, was a brooding glaring thing, and had snapped at Tom something about being up to standards in Slytherin. The boy had been listening to the man droning on and on about house loyalty and honour (did Slytherins have one? A huge surprise here) and found himself severely disappointed in the man.

Couldn’t they have found a better Head of House? Tom just hoped Snape would be adequate at potions as a qualified specialist. Tom tolerated anyone as long as they did their job well.

An elbow nudged him, and Tom turned his head to the blonde sitting on his left. He raised his eyebrow, waiting for the explanation.

“I suggest we get going,” she told him and brushed a lock of hair away from her azure eyes.

She was pretty, Tom supposed, and pureblood. He wondered why she would talk to him.

“The bell doesn’t ring for another twenty minutes,” Tom responded haughtily and lifted his chin.

Greengrass looked at him pityingly and sighed, shaking her head. “You’re a mudblood, aren’t you? There is no need to reply. You try to hide it but completely botch up it all up with small things like that.”

A dark scowl crossed Tom’s face, and the boy moved to get up, ready to leave. He had wanted to go to the classroom anyway, even before this stranger had come. Greengrass gripped his arm, preventing him from standing up.

“I didn’t want to offend you-, “she began apologetically.

“You didn’t.” His pride wouldn’t let him say aloud or admit to himself otherwise.

“Hogwarts is huge, if you haven’t noticed. There are a lot of classrooms here but that’s not the problem. Staircases move and there are false doors all around the place. You can get a nasty surprise if you don’t know the right paths.”

“And you do?” Tom asked reluctantly, a calculative glint in his eyes. If his impressions were right… He was on the road to acquiring his first ally.

“Father’s on the Board of the Governors,” Greengrass said smugly, hurriedly urging Tom to rise and follow her out of the Hall. He could see students around him doing the same. “He lets me come with him if I want to on some occasions. Very useful, if you ask me.”

“And why are you being so helpful? Don’t you hold a grudge against muggles?” Tom asked her, only now noticing the way she was holding his hand, and wrested his limb out of her hold. His voice was laden with distrust: he didn’t believe in people’s goodwill at all.

Greengrass mumbled something incoherently, her cheeks flushed a dark brown, and averted her eyes as she guided him through the labyrinth of corridors, their steps hurried.

The realization hit Tom, and he smirked complacently, knowing the blonde wouldn’t see him from her position. The idiot had a crush on him! It cleared out everything, and speculations about how he could use this to his advantage immediately filled his mind. Plans began to form, and Tom couldn’t wait to sort out the best possible choices of how to execute them in the silence of his room tonight.

“I- Um…” She obviously wanted to slow down to catch her breath, but Tom didn’t let her. He didn’t give a damn about her well-being, and she herself seemed to be smitten with him, which gave the boy a lot of leeway.

“Our family is neutral in all this hustle between muggles and wizards,” Greengrass admitted finally, when they were steps away from the Defence against the Dark Arts classroom.

Tom nodded distractedly, not really caring about the answer.

He had made up his mind to start researching important wizarding families and who was who in the Wizarding World. He would have done it sooner but school funding didn’t involve much – all the money had been used to buy books and proper clothes, including but not limited to everyday robes.

When Tom entered the class and Professor Quirinus Quirrell, a bolding stammering man in his thirties, began his lesson, the boy’s mind was far from the boring introductory speech as he made mental lists about the literature he had to peruse.

XXX

Tom was striding aggravatedly to the next classroom, Greengrass having already told him the way. Her speech hadn’t been coherent, what’s with that awkward moment from before, but Tom wasn’t called a genius for naught: his mind processed her rambling explanations with practiced ease, acquired at the orphanage.

His Defense against the Dark Arts lessons had been one huge disappointment. The teacher was a stuttering fool and while he knew the subject decently, his manner of speech stood in the way of comprehensibly conveying the information.

It was bloody frustrating, Tom thought, clenching his small fists in annoyance and glaring at the students passing by. Some Hufflepuff first year whose name Tom didn’t remember squeaked and rushed out of his way under the power of the Glare of Doom.

With self-satisfaction Tom once again ascertained the power he still held over others despite not being that special in terms of his talent.

Of course, he was still special in every other way, having a miraculous future lying ahead of him.

He saw the door leading to their Transfiguration classroom and, grasping the cool metal of the handle, pushed it open. The Deputy Headmistress, who was the Transfiguration Professor, was nowhere to be seen. The only other living creature beside himself was the bushy haired bookworm muttering to herself the contents of the book aloud, her hands cupping her ears to drown out the noise from the corridor, and a cat on the table.

Tom placed his bag on the desk gently and sat down, observing the cat with a tilt of his head. There was something off with the animal, Tom knew. Its eyes were too intelligent for a lowly creature not encumbered with human intellect. He narrowed his gaze and glared at the creature, forcing it to relent and give away all its secrets with sheer force of his glower.

Alas, his attempts weren’t fruitful and, with a dark scoff, Tom turned away and opted to look at the mudblood instead.

He didn’t understand the need to review the material now – the classes hadn’t begun yet and there was no homework to do. Of course, Tom had read the books, marking the most interesting paragraphs and facts, but for the most part textbooks were filled with useless information on the most basic of things – how to hold one’s wand or huge treatises on the dangers of mispronouncing spells.

True, those details made up magic but they weren’t worth purposeful learning - reading them one time was enough to get the whole picture.

Five minutes were left until the class began and students were rushing in in small groups of three-five. Some of them were gasping for breath after what obviously had been a mad dash to the classroom. It was a known fact that McGonagall wasn’t a woman to tolerate any lateness or other disregard for rules. Even the students of her own house were punished most severely because of the smallest transgressions.

The creepily-staring cat hadn’t moved an inch.

“I heard McGonagall, the old cat, loves taking away points from Slytherin,” Nott complained vociferously, landing on a chair two seats away from Tom. He threw his bag on the desk carelessly and leaned in to whisper in Zabini’s ear loudly. “Favours her own house, I heard. She’s really angry with Snape for Slytherin taking away from her _both_ the House Cup and the Qudditch Cup. I fear she’s going to take it all out on us.”

Zabini waved him away, not at all concerned.

“Nah, I doubt it. She’s too much of a goody two shoes to play unfairly, I tell you.”

The bell rang. Tom watched in freezing disdain as his yearmates, encouraged by the absence of the professor, went on talking noisily. He kept quiet as did that mudblood from the train, the only other person besides himself to sit alone.

Greengrass chose to sit with Bulstrode this time, and they were talking in a hushed whisper, gesticulating animatedly but otherwise quiet. A couple of times Tom could feel Greengrass’s lingering glances on his back but didn’t turn around.

Suddenly, the door swung open and everyone’s heads whirled around to see the newcomer. Weasley was making his way to the front seat, an apologetic yet relieved grimace on his face.

“Nev, can I sit with you?” Without waiting for a reply, the redhead whom Tom found to be as obnoxious and annoying as any other Gryffindor, crashed on the chair next to the frightened Longbottom. “It’s cool that McGonnagal’s not  here. I heard she can be pretty vicious.”

Hardly had he finished the sentence the cat’s still figure began to transform. A moment later a strict woman with tight lines around her mouth was standing in front of them. She stepped off the teacher’s desk gracefully and pursed her lips, looking at their class with disdain.

“Detention with Mr. Filch for a week, Mr. Weasley,” she said sharply, and Tom’s previous claims that the woman wasn’t someone to be messed with were verified. Filch was a sick nasty man with equally sick nasty punishments. Tom was determined as hell to never get discovered while going against school rules.

The redhead flushed a scarlet red and muttered a sorry before ducking his head into the textbook to keep it like that for the rest of the class.

“The same concerns Mr. Zabini and Mr. Nott,” she continued in that steely tone. Both of the mentioned boys paled but knew it was no use to argue - they’ll just make it worse.

“If you have all settled the matters regarding your teacher’s competence,” she was talking to a completely silent class now, in which Tom reveled and for which he respected her. “I hope we can start.”

They took out their quills and poised them under the parchment, ready to write down whatever information was new or needed for a quiz.

"Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts," McGonagall said, walking about the classroom to take a look at each of her students and memorize their faces. “Anyone messing around in my class will leave and never come back. You have been warned."

Moving swiftly, she spun around and transformed her desk into a pig and back again. Tom was very much impressed with the sight just like everyone else but knew they wouldn’t be doing inanimate objects to animal transfiguration until their fifth year, when the teacher would be sure they had grasped the basics.

If there was anyone falling behind or the material seemed to be over their head, teachers had the right to abolish the topic for that year and return to it only in their seventh class.

It made Tom crease his eyebrows in displeasure. Why would his potential be hindered because of some imbecilic morons who couldn’t hold their wand right?

“By the end of the class, I want at least one of you be able to turn the matches I have given you into needles. If you succeed, it will result in points for you and your housemates. If not, the task will be left for you to do in your free time. You will show me your progressing skills during the next lesson. Get to work.”

McGonagall showed the class how transfiguration was done, brilliantly transforming the match into the needle. She made it seem easy by her display, but in reality it was much harder.

They were struggling with it for what seemed like half an hour before Tom got the gist of it and his match became pointy and silvery. With sophisticated pride he called McGonagall to show her his achievement.

She looked at him in bewilderment and forced out, her eyes wide as saucers, “Extraordinary, Mr. Riddle!” She took a deep breath and regained control of herself, giving him a stare full of consideration and a rare smile. “Well, I believe we can expect great thing of you. If you continue showing such progress, I believe that even Dumbledore will seem inferior to you one day. Twenty points to Slytherin!”

She returned to checking other students’ progress, so astounded that she didn’t mind the loud chatter behind her back. Tom was very pleased with himself, especially when his eye caught Nott’s and Zabini’s wondering gazes as well as Greengrass’s excited whispering with Davis and Bulstrode.

Those words about expectations… They reminded Tom a great deal about what Ollivander had told him in Diagon Alley while selling Tom his yew wand. The man had mentioned an issue with brother wands but Tom wasn’t paying great attention to that – his mind had been filled with the ways to use his new wand.

Smirking slightly, Tom inclined his head and worked on other matches, shaping them differently or giving them different colours. It was a victory, but a small one.

The first step to his goal.

He had to work further if he wanted to achieve the same kind of influence people like Dumbledore had – only more. Much, much more.

The awed mutterings around him never ceased. Neither did the hateful glares of a muggleborn girl, stripped of her only joy in life – being the best.

XXX

 The last lesson of the day was Potions with their Head of House.

Tom was quite thrilled to see how Snape would conduct his lessons – the man seemed to have something against both working with children and children in general.

Another reason Tom was so excited was that the lesson was with the Ravenclaws.

He would see Potter there!

 _‘Not that I’m eager to see him, of course,_ ’ Tom corrected himself harshly and hastily, not noticing how there was an additional bounce to his step. _‘I’m merely wondering whether he is valuable as an ally and worth of this hustle of befriending him. Nothing more.’_

Their Potions class was situated deep down in the dungeons, far below the level of the Great Hall. Dungeons were cold, and lurking shadows seemed to hide horrible secrets and dark, twisted mysteries. Glass jars stood all around the walls with both pickled and living animals and insects floating in them.

The sight was eerily frightening. Tom supposed he was lucky that neither Ravenclaws nor Slytherins were of the fainting sort. Any other Hufflepuff would have fainted on sight, which they did on occasions.

Pity that Tom hadn’t been there. It would have been entertaining to watch all those weak willed morons flail their hands not knowing what to do.

Greengrass and her friend Tracey Davis were flanking him now, talking about something inane excitedly. After his excellent performance in Transfiguration class, some students grudgingly admitted he could be as good as any pureblood.

Well, Tom had known it before, of course. But see them acknowledge his talents brought an unidentifiable kind of happiness.

If only their admiration came with closed mouths.

Upon entering the door, he immediately noticed rows of empty cauldrons and a huge blackboard just behind teacher’s desk. Tom chose to sit in the front row once again, this time with Greengrass joining him.

The boy neatly arranged his small jars with animal parts, flies’ wings, plants, and flowers as well as empty crystal phials and brass scales. Potions was apparently a subject that needed precision and self-organization, the traits denoting Tom so well. Needless to say that the boy had been most anxious to start learning this subject.

And potions were connected with poisons.

Even in his early years Tom had noted how the best and most mysterious assassinations were done with a drop of a poison. Potions Masters surely knew how to make an untraceable one, right?

That Zabini guy had also said something about his mother owning a collection of them. Could be useful to get to know him. To become his ‘friend’.

The minute the bell rang Severus Snape swept in with his black robes flying around him. His expression was as sour as it had been the day before. Tom secretly wondered if his professor physically _could_ be happy for once.

“Like an overgrown bat, he is,” leaned in to whisper rather loudly in Morag McDougal’s ear Kevin Entwhisle.

“Ten points from Ravenclaw for insulting a teacher.” Snape’s voice cut through them like a razor blade. His eyes emphasized the waxy paleness of his skin and their blackness reminded way too much of dark tunnels.

It worked and there was no talk after that. Perfectionists Ravenclaws didn’t want to lose their chance at the House Cup.

The man started the class by taking the roll call. He paused, ever so slightly, at Harry Potter’s name. No one else noticed it, but Tom was awfully perceptive when it came to the other boy and the slight change in his professor’s tone hadn’t gone unnoticed.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking," Snape began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word — like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort.  It did draw a reluctant kind of respect from Tom.

  1. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t  expect you to really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering  fumes,  the  delicate  power  of  liquids  that  creep  through  human  veins,  bewitching  the  mind,  ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even brew a stopper of death — if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”   



Slytherins knew that Snape would never dock points from his own House – Tom had overheard proudly telling it to them the day before – but Ravenclaws tensed and straightened in their seats, alertness shining in their eyes.

Suddenly, Snape rounded on Harry.

“Potter!” He sneered, glaring at the staggered boy as if the latter had offended him. Surprisingly, there was only understanding and resignation in Potter’s expression, as if he knew it would happen. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

A couple of Slytherins stretched their hands into the air along with some Ravenclaws.

“The Drought of Living Death, sir,” Potter replied calmly, tilting his head and making raven black locks fall into his eyes with the motion. Snape seemed to find offense in the boy’s politeness.

“Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

Potter opened his mouth a bit in perplexity and his eyebrows creased. Tom couldn’t stop a surge of inexplicable anger directed at Snape. _‘Can’t he just lay off him?’_ Tom thought with aggravation, his fingers tapping the edge of his cauldron soundlessly.

 After a few moments of intensive thinking, just as Snape’s lips were twisting into a triumphant smirk and his mouth opened to utter a derogatory remark, Potter’s face brightened with recollection.

“It’s a stone, right? Useful against poisons and can be taken in the stomach of a goat.”

From Snape’s expression one would think he had eaten a bunch of lemons. Narrowing his eyes, he stomped to the younger wizard and leaned over the desk, his breath reaching Harry’s rapidly blinking eyes.

“You seem to know so much… What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

“Umm…” Potter nibbled on his bottom lips, looking away. It was obvious he didn’t know the answer to that one. None of them did.

Other than Tom, of course.

“They are the same plant,” Tom heard himself say, much to his own astonishment. He added, “Sir. With all due respect, I don’t mind revising the material. Unfortunately, we are yet to _learn_ what we need to revise.”

Snape grimaced but didn’t say anything to a student of his own House. His glares of doom, though, promised a long talk in the privacy of their common room.

“Well?” he barked at the students. “Why aren’t you dunderheads writing it all down?”

_‘Obviously, you haven’t told us to.’_

The same thought was running through everyone’s heads but none of them dared to voice it aloud.

“Dude!” Greengrass exclaimed with wide eyes when they paired up to make a simple potion to cure boils. “I think you are my hero! None of Hogwarts students ever tried to interrupt Snape when he is in the middle of tormenting some poor soul.”

Tom shrugged at the compliment, once again not letting his smugness show. Whispers surrounded him once again no matter how hard Snape tried to silence the class. Only Malfoy, along with those brainless idiots flanking him, wasn’t as thrilled. For reasons unknown, the guy liked Snape. And Crabbe and Goyle weren’t that much of thinkers, opting to copy their ‘leader’ instead.

When the class was almost finished and Tom was walking up to Snape’s desk to turn in the sealed flask with a perfectly-made Boils-Curing Potion, he caught Potter’s eyes staring back at him.

The hesitance of the smile Potter threw him didn’t diminish its luminosity at all. Tom felt his heart skip a beat. He didn’t know why he was feeling like that but, Merlin, to experience once more this pleasant warmth in his chest he was ready to tolerate hundreds of Snape-talks.

XXX


	3. Somewhere in Time

**Chapter 3. Somewhere in Time.**

On the second week of September Tom was already used to the flurry of owls delivering letters and packages to the fellow students. The boy himself had never received one, aside from his Hogwarts letter, but didn’t let it faze him as he watched Malfoy gleefully open a box of house elves-made biscuits.

Tom was seated with his head facing the rest of the Hall, between a sleepy Greengrass, and Zabini, who was whining to Nott about how unfair it was they couldn’t keep their own brooms. Malfoy wholeheartedly agreed with him, once again mentioning his father.

As usual, the talk flowed into the awed singing of praises to Lucius Malfoy and his countless merits.

 _‘I wonder how many points will be taken from me if I hex him right now,’_ Tom thought with irritation, piercing the tender meat on his place with a little more force than intended.

He couldn’t help it. In the past two weeks Tom knew all about the Malfoy family, up to the way Narcissa Malfoy was dressed on her son’s third birthday.

Unfortunately, most curses were in the Restricted Section of the library – a fact Tom resented greatly.

Why did they feel the need to deny students knowledge? And then had the gall to say that children today aren’t interested in anything scientific, when they themselves mercilessly strangled their drive by setting up boundaries.

True, it wasn’t the legal kind of sciences Tom was interested in, but still.

A regal-looking owl dropped a newspaper in front of Greengrass, who was sitting with her face buried in her arms. Tom almost sneered at the soft snores coming from her.

Without asking to – he didn’t feel up for pleasantries – Tom grabbed the newspaper. His eyes immediately came across a headline on the front page that made his breathing shallow with anticipation.

_ Miracle Done Again! Healer Potter’s New Potion! _

The article spoke of something called ‘apparition’ and how this way of travelling brought along with it not only convenience but grave injuries as well. Tom leaned forward in interest as he read about people finding themselves with their limbs across the oceans because of some small mistakes.

The same was said about portkeys – a faulty portkey could leave a person with their head somewhere in Ireland, torso in Paris, arms in Boston, and nether parts in the Ukraine.

Tom found it vastly amusing. A girl sitting at the Ravenclaw table, Su Li or something, had an obvious way of showing her disagreement – by shrieking in horror at the gory details and photos, and fainting.

Healer Lily Potter apparently invented a way around splinching by creating a potion, which, if ingested before the apparition, worked as a kind of super glue and cemented a person’s insides together. This way, even if the destination would be different from where they end up, because of the potion this person would at least be whole, without their limbs and intestines spreading throughout the world.

Tom didn’t know half the properties of the ingredients mentioned in the articles but thought it was crafty enough.

His attention, though, was mostly snatched not by the article itself but by the photograph of the woman, who reminded him of a certain someone sitting at the Ravenclaw table with his nose buried in _The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)_ by Miranda Goshawk.

Tom berated himself for stal- observing the boy once again and decided to look at the moving photo once more.

The woman at the front mirrored greatly McGonagall in her mannerisms and even in appearance. The same stern lines around the eyes and proud straight back. Lily Potter also had a crimson mane of hair, and her brilliant green eyes had dancing sparks of warmth in them despite her otherwise rigorous appearance.

“Potters,” Malfoy, who was sitting a couple of seats away from Tom, scoffed and glared at his half-finished goblet of pumpkin juice. “I bet they are enjoying the attention.”

“What did they do this time?” Nott asked in interest, leaning across the table to take a look at Malfoy’s issue of the _Daily Prophet_.

“Mrs. Potter did a good thing,” Bulstrode said, looking aside from her Charms textbook. She was silent most of the time, talking only when she either didn’t comprehend something or when it was coaxed out of her. “I don’t understand why you are so miffed about it.”

Zabini waved her off, taking a swig of water from his goblet to wash down the omelette.

“Don’t mind him, Bulstrode. He is just annoyed that James Potter almost got his father jailed on one of the Auror raids.”

Tom sent a disgusted sneer as Zabini was talking with his mouth full. Honestly, those people were purebloods. _Aristocracy_ or something. Older Slytherins were good enough: cool, reserved, with sharp eyes speaking volumes of intelligence behind them. Their younger counterparts, though…

Tom would have looked away from the pitiful picture if only the topic wasn’t so engaging.

“From then on he hates all things Potter,” Greengrass said through a yawn as she finally woke up.

“My godfather is against them, too!” Malfoy protested, glaring at them for not backing him as good little lap dogs. “My father _and_ my godfather can’t _both_ be mistaken!”

“Get a mind for yourself, Draco,” Zabini said and wiped his mouth with a napkin, sending a look of pity at his friend. “Potter in our year is a decent enough bloke, and Lily Potter has done a world of good, too.”

“How about we finish with the subject of Potters and go to the classroom?” Davis interrupted, for some reason looking fretfully at Nott. The latter was already standing with a closed off expression, his face full of promises of torture to Malfoy.

The blond noticed it and paled drastically muttering a quick sorry and averting his eyes in shame.

Intrigued, Tom raised an eyebrow at Greengrass in a silent inquire. The girl flushed at having his attention directed at her before clutching his shoulder and leaning in to whisper in his ear.

“Healer Potter helped Nott’s father when he was on the verge of dying. He feels so overwhelmed with gratitude that hates it whenever someone badmouths any of them.”

Her solemn expression twisted into an impish one as she whispered once more, “Draco can expect great talking to from Lucius Malfoy, if Nott tips off his father. The Notts are as high up as the Malfoys, and old snakey Lucius would be forced to do something about his son’s loud mouth.”

Tom smirked in pleasure. He didn’t like the boy’s obnoxious personality. Malfoy deserved to be brought down a few notches.

Tom would most certainly enjoy the show if it happened.

XXX

Tom didn’t even notice how November came around.

The classes, entertaining in the beginning, had become rather boring. He was a genius and got most of the spells they had to learn on his first tries, much to the rising jealousy and admiration in his fellow first years.

The subject Tom would have preferred most was Potions – alas, with Snape as a teacher, it was impossible. The acerbic man had taken a huge dislike towards him the moment Tom defended Potter.

He couldn’t understand what was the deal with the man and his potential ally – as far as Tom had seen, Potter was polite and quite intelligent, two traits Snape valued in people. He guessed it had something to do with Snape being a bitchy woman in a male body – illogical and PMSing all the time.

Would have been amusing if he wasn’t Tom’s Head of House.

Tom ‘s academical achievements were astounding. The creepily smiling wierdo Headmaster had called Tom to his office and, with an infuriating offer of tea and _muggle_ treats, personally congratulated him.

McGonagall had all but proclaimed him her favourite student along with mudblood Granger, positively glowing every time he showed her his accelerated skills. Her rare smiles had stopped being so rare well into October, when Tom managed to transform a small pillow into a goblet.

Flitwick, a short and excitable wizard, was ecclesiastical about Tom’s rapid improvement, and often lamented at the fact that the boy hadn’t been placed in Ravenclaw. He had his consolation of having Potter, at least, who was one of the best students.

Professor Sinistra, their Astronomy teacher, took a liking to Tom right from their first lesson when he, feigning anticipation and interest, kept asking her about planets and constellations. Tom, admittedly, found Astronomy rather boring, so keeping up the pretenses of being a sweet boy kept him from falling asleep on his feet as they gazed through their telescopes at the sky above them.

Defense against the Dark Arts was a blast. Not.

Tom found himself constantly annoyed by Quirrell’s continuous stutters and incomprehensible explanations of the material, and resorted to self-learning. He had Hogwarts’s full library to explore, and the most ancient books written in complex language, with long-winded sentences, still made him understand theory better than that imbecilic moron who had the nerve to call himself a teacher.

The same concerned the lessons of Professor Cuthbert Binns, who was in all actuality not even human but a droning ghost, always talking in monotone and confusing his students’ names.

When, one day, only Tom, mudblood Granger, and a couple of Slytherins turned up at the lesson, the man continued reciting the long monologue without even checking the attendance.

How were they supposed to learn with Snape’s childish grudges and snappishness, Binns’s disregard of anything, and Quirrell’s spinelessness?

And there was one subject Tom was, unexpectedly, struggling with.

Herbology.

Oh, how Tom had come to hate this word.

While Tom considered it undignified, he wasn’t that unused to working in the dirt – at the orphanage they had been encouraged to participate in government programmes for the betterment of the environment and had to plant trees regularly. Tom usually used his gift of compulsion to get out of this chore, but sometimes he deigned the orphanage gardens with his presence.

Yet he couldn’t even replant Devil’s Snare because the bloody thing was _alive_ and twisting and curling in his hands.

To add insult to injury, Longbottom, who was afraid of his own shadow, tripped on his own robes on more than one occasion, who was terrified of speaking to people, and a perfect target for bloody _Malfoy_ with the blond’s hexing skills of a muggle… This very same Longbottom was the best in this class.

The only consolation for Tom was that Potter wasn’t in that class to see his ignominy.

Tom brushed a lock of hair away from his eyes as he stared at the parchment in front of him. His housemates were at the first Quidditch match of the season, leaving him in the solitude and coolness of the dormitory.

Tom honestly didn’t mind -  he was happy and relieved about it, in fact.

 _Had been_ until the door swung open and Zabini barged in, dark aggravation written all over his boyishly handsome face. Tom watched on in interest as the dark-skinned boy stomped over to his bed and plopped on it, making the abused piece of furniture creak.

“I can’t believe it!” Zabini blurted out before sending a sharp glare at Tom “Bloody mudbloods! You lot certainly know how to spoil a game.”

Tom’s face remained emotionless as he turned back to the task at hand – his Transfiguration assignment.

Zabini blathered on, ignoring the lack of response.

“One of your kind just accused Slytherin of cheating, and another mudblood agreed. They both pressed on the old bat McGonagall and Dumbledore, and they both agreed our team was playing too rough. Can you believe that?”

“And what is my part in that? It was the team’s fault for cheating,” Tom replied reasonably through clenched teeth.

He wanted nothing more than tune out this blabbering idiot but he knew that to achieve something he needed to gather allies. He didn’t know what exactly his goal was but it would be grand, and Tom needed to remain outwardly benign, patient, and ready to help, hiding his real thoughts beneath a façade.

Besides, Zabini was the most tolerable of Slytherin males – the dark-skinned boy cared for nothing more than money and poisons, not really minding someone’s tainted ancestry. Tom just took great care to hide that he was as poor as a church mouse.

Being both a mudblood _and_ poor was something his intelligence wouldn’t make up for.

“Quidditch is a rough sport,” Zabini snapped, lying down on his bed and putting his arms under his head as he stared stubbornly at the ceiling above him. “But you, tender little creatures, thought it was _painful_ to land on your equally tender arses, and changed the rules of our tradition.”

“I’m a halfblood,” Tom reminded sharply, his thin fingers clutching the parchment tightly at being compared to filthy mudbloods. “Don’t compare me to them.”

Zabini looked surprised before a sly smirk crossed his lips and he turned his head to look at Tom through lowered eyelashes.

“My, my, a muggle-hating mudblood? That’s new.”

“Even if I _were_ a mudblood,” Tom said disdainfully, glaring at Zabini, “It doesn’t mean that I would be the same as them. Should I compare you to a Weasley? They are purebloods, too.”

Zabini pulled a face at the mention of the Weasleys.

“A living offense to everything wizarding,” he muttered. “I’m lucky I’m from mostly Italian aristocracy and not related to them.”

They were in silence for a few long minutes. Tom was working on his homework, hoping against hope that there would be no more interruptions.

Unfortunately, Fate seemed to particularly hate him today.

“Say,” Zabini began once more, his eyes never leaving Tom’s tall form. “How about a deal?”

Tom’s hand stopped from finishing a sentence about the influence of tissues on the complexity of transfiguration. He finally looked at Zabini, catching the latter’s smirk.

“What kind of a deal?”

“I noticed how you are pushing yourself in your studies,” Zabini drawled and sat up, facing Tom on his bed. “Want to become someone in the Wizarding World? I know just the place where you can form some useful connections.”

He smirked victoriously when he saw Tom’s narrowed eyes and heard a hissed ‘continue’.

“You should know that winter is the season of embassy balls, Christmas parties, and social gatherings with endless lists of important guests invited. Many of them don’t care about your parentage as long as you are adequate at what you are doing.”

Tom listened, his figure still, and Zabini went on talking.

“I see a lot of potential in you, Riddle. If you can prove that you are indeed a halfblood, you can acquire a few good friends in Slytherin House.”

“I _am_ ,” Tom began, almost scrunching up his face in disgust at what he wanted to say, “Friends with Greengrass and Davis.”

Zabini sneered, not impressed with the names.

“Daphne is decent enough, but she’s a girl. When her crush on you passes, her support will pass, too.”

Tom had come to the same conclusion. He won’t always have the scion of the Greengrass family backing him up. That’s why he acted so sweet and helpful outside of Slytherin House – Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws rather liked him now, after he had helped them do their homework and supplied them with answers on a couple of quizes.

The opportunity to meet the crème de la crème of their society… he couldn’t pass up no matter what.

“So?” Tom asked, twisting on his chair to properly see Zabini. “What are the terms of the deal?”

“Now that our Quidditch team has lost its chance at gaining points for the House, we are in a tight situation,” the dark-skinned boy began, eyes gleaming. “However, your talents are impressive, and all teachers give you many points during their lessons. If you help us win the House Cup this year, next year I will convince mother to invite you on our Christmas party.”

It didn’t take long for Tom to agree, his mind raking over the possibilities.

It would be easy to receive more House points, he was certain of it. He just needed to suggest Professor Sinistra to make them write more tests, which he excelled.

He couldn’t wait to see Malfoy’s face next year when he finds out that Tom is going to be on one of the most prestigious pureblood parties.

XXX

_“Salazar Slytherin was known as not only one of the Founders of the famous Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry but as a man of many talents as well. One of his many abilities was Parseltongue – the language he used to speak to snakes. This most outstanding of abilities hadn’t known to exist until his time._

_Some historians dare to go as far as to believe that he was the inventor of this language. Alas, their claims haven’t been proven by authentic evidence – based only on the fact that Salazar Slytherin was a known researcher and experimentalist, therefore could discover a way to talk to snakes.”_

Tom was reading _Hogwarts, A History_ , when the doors to the library were slammed open. It was a pity that Madame Pince was away at the moment. Otherwise, the intruders would have to pay dearly for interrupting the sacred silence of the library.

He turned to glare at whoever diverted his attention from the book, when his eyes were met with the sight of Potter dragging a mulish Weasley, with Longbottom trailing uncertainly behind them.

“I will not have my best friend as dull as this table.” Potter pointed at the desk they sat around, his eyebrows creased in determination. “Ron, admit that you are steps away from becoming worse than Finnegan in Charms.”

“Hey, mate, I’m hurt,” Weasley whined annoyingly, not noticing Tom’s glower. “Are you implying I am _dumb_?”

 _‘Not far from Crabbe and Goyle,’_ Tom replied mentally.

Potter sighed and pulled a few Charms books out of his bag.

“Ron, your mother will be unhappy with you again. And, somehow, when she is unhappy with _you_ , my eardrums and stomach have to suffer,” he said, making Tom raise his eyebrow in disbelief.

So, Potter was really close friends with Weasley, they knew each other’s parents, and spent time together despite having nothing in common. Tom tried not to scoff. Oh, why did the thought of Weasley and Potter together irritate him this much?

He willed his body to stop the clenching of his fists.

It became worse when Weasley patted Potter’s shoulder in mock-compassion.

“Yeah, mate. I really don’t envy you when she begins to stuff all that food down your throat.”

Potter shrugged the hand off his shoulder. “Who would have thought I’d live to see a day when Ron Weasley comforts me about overeating?”

They both laughed, the smile on Potter’s face radiant and having none of the usual hesitance of the smiles he sometimes threw Tom. In fact, Tom could see that with his _friend_ (the word felt vile in his thoughts) Potter was more laidback than ever, not stiff or shy or blushing.

“So, Neville, what part of this do you not understand?” Potter asked the timid blond boy kindly, his expression warm and glowing.

“Ummm… Everything. I guess…” Longbottom trailed off hesitantly and looked to a side, catching Tom’s glaring eyes. The blond quickly looked away when he saw the Slytherin badge on the boy’s school robes. Malfoy and his goons were especially violent towards him.

_‘As they should. I can’t believe this spineless worm is from a renowned pureblood family. How the mighty have fallen.’_

“Don’t look so down, Neville,” Potter encouraged, touching the other boy with his fingertips. “I’m sure you know much more than you believe. Just ask this buffoon here.” He gestured at the annoyed Weasley. “He’s awful at everything yet comes out decent enough on quizzes.”

 _‘If being one of the last can be called ‘decent enough’_ …’ Tom sneered at the scene in front of him.

He didn’t understand why Potter would bother with those two sidekicks. They had nothing. No outstanding intelligence – or any kind of intelligence, really – no beauty, no connections, no close friends other than Potter…

And yet, they were able to interact with him so freely while Tom, who was the epitome of perfection, wasn’t.

He had researched the Potter family, along with the Greengrasses, Malfoys, Blacks, Notts, Rosiers, and Lestranges, and found that it was an upper-middle class family, not an Ancient and Noble House but near it in importance.

They were wealthy enough because of the stocks in broomstick production and because both Mr. and Mrs. Potter earned a lot and were included in the list of the most outstanding wizards and witches of their century.

During his research Tom had also come across stuff like them winning The Most Beautiful Couple Award three times in a row, but the boy didn’t care much about this.

The point was that James Potter was the Head of the Law Enforcement Department, one of the most prominent positions in the Ministry of Magic. And Lily Potter was a healer specializing in internal organs damage, who was considered one of the best healers in Great Britain. She was also a Potions Master, working alongside Severus Snape on a few occasions.

It wasn’t said outright, but Tom clearly saw the implication that her recent potion was created with his help.

 The couple’s outstanding achievements finally justified that unbearable longing Tom sometimes felt towards Potter.

It had to be because he saw the black-haired boy as a valuable asset, what’s with his parentage and intelligence, Tom decided with determination. He saw no other reason for those possessive urges in his small chest whenever someone spent more time than necessary with Potter. It had to be.

Just as he took the quill into his hand again, determined to shake off those thoughts about Potter, the trio sitting across him broke into peals of laughter at something Weasley had said.

“It’s a library,” someone snapped, and everyone turned their heads to the annoyed bushy-haired mudblood. She was standing with her hands on her hips, fuming like a dragon during heat. “If you want to fool around, do it somewhere else, lest I call Madame Pince.”

“What died and made you the boss?” Weasley asked loudly with a frown on his freckled face. Longbottom just looked away, muttering a quick ‘sorry’.

“Madame Pince,” the girl replied smugly, her voice unbearably bossy.

Weasley opened his mouth, ready to retort, and Tom put away his book, ready to step in and humiliate the mudblood a bit, when Potter stood up, his face unreadable.

“Don’t, Ron,” he said softly, his tone making Granger falter. “Let’s go outside. The weather is good, and we can ask Professor Flitwick to cast some warming charms on us.”

“But, Harry-“ Weasley protested, offended that they would have to leave because of Granger.

Potter grabbed Weasley’s hand and dragged him to the door, not before throwing him a meaningful look. Tom quickly threw his books into his bag, which he swung over his shoulder, and followed them, staying a bit behind so as to not be seen.

In the corridor he could hear their soft voices.

“-still don’t understand why you did that, Harry,” Weasley was complaining loudly. Longbottom only nodded in agreement.

Potter simply shrugged and said, “I saw Madame Pince in the back of the library. If she came to investigate, we would have been put in detention. My father has told me enough about Filch, and I don’t want to experience it, thank you.”

 _‘How… Slytherin of him,’_ Tom thought. Then again, Potter was a complete mystery to the boy – he, despite having many acquaintances in different Houses, led a quiet life and never gave away much about himself, no matter how much Tom listened in o- _overheard_ his conversations.

“Speaking about your father,” Longbottom began darting a look at Potter, “Does he have much work again this Christmas?”

Tom didn’t see Potter’s expression, but the boy’s voice was a veiled cry of misery.

“I think so,” he said softly, almost in a whisper, and brought his hand to his head. “Mum will be working in St. Mungo’s, too. Said she has to operate Rufus Screamgeur. Dad felt really down about his injury, because it was him to send Screamgeur off on the mission, so he asked mum to help him.”

Tom felt something pull at his chest at hearing Potter’s voice so sorrowful. He batted the annoying feeling away.

“So you are staying at Hogwarts this year?” Longbottom asked with hopefulness lacing his voice, which evaporated when Potter shook his head.

“I doubt it. I think mum’s going to send me to Susan’s. She and her aunt are very good friends. Susan’s father used to be close with dad and really fun, too, but I don’t remember him all that well. It’s a pity he died,” he said, eyes downcast at the reminder.

“Oh,” Longbottom sighed, his shoulders hunching in disappointment. “I have to stay in Hogwarts for the hols.”

“Why? It’s not like your parents are going anywhere.”

“Mum wanted to keep me at home, but Gran put down her foot and said that I need to ‘man up and get some friends and stop being a whiney brat’. Dad listened to her, and here I am.”

“Tough luck, mate,” Weasley said pityingly. “Nah, I’m lucky to spend Christmas with my family. Dad has saved up some money, so we’re going to see Bill in Egypt. Ginny is so excited.”

“Do tell me about it.” Potter’s voice was much lighter now, bearing traces of amusement. “I wonder how you don’t get jealous. He is her favourite brother, after all.”

“You have no idea,” Weasley snorted into his fist. “Anyway, in Egypt we will…”

From the corner of Tom’s eye the boy saw some approaching Slytherins. With great reluctance, he straightened out and began walking in the opposite direction. Potter and his mysterious family affairs or not, it wouldn’t do to be viewed as a stalking creep by his housemates.

Moreover, he now had something else to worry about.

When _Hogwarts, A History_ spoke of Salazar Slytherin, the book mentioned Parseltongue, the ability to talk to snakes, which was said to be exceptionally rare and held by the descendants of the Slytherin line.

Tom clearly remembered the times he had spent talking to snakes. Usually, they weren’t intelligent and their rambles consisted of complaints about food or cold, but some specimen could tell him a useful thing or two, or at least offer some company during lonely days.

Did his ability mean that Tom was related to the great Salazar Slytherin himself? The mere thought was enough to send pleasant shivers down his spine.

He made a mental note to himself to research more about the subject. No matter how he longed to find out more about his long lost family, Tom had more pressing concerns right now.

The book mentioned that Slytherin was the first Dark Lord, a person who proclaimed the superiority of wizards over muggles using somewhat violent means. Tom had read the list of dogmas and whole-heartedly agreed with most of them.

Muggles had no right to exist. They were weak, and vile, and foolish, and _ordinary_.

They did nothing but destroy the world around them: the environment, people around them, houses, architectural sites… Tom didn’t understand the use of their existence. Not to mention that crime was more spread among muggles and muggleborns than around wizards.

Tom suddenly wondered what Potter felt about this issue.

He pursed his lips angrily, almost strong enough to draw blood, at the fact that he was thinking about Potter again.

This time, though, there was another matter to think over.

If Tom guessed correctly what being a Dark Lord entailed… Here he had his ideal profession.

Winter holidays were near, and there would be no one in the dorms to stop him from researching the subject thoroughly. Tom couldn’t wait to study his future responsibilities and rules.

XXX


	4. Destined to Go Wrong

**Chapter 4. Destined to go wrong.**

“Tom, I think I just about love you!” Megan Jones, a Hufflepuff student, exclaimed before flushing with embarrassment and averting her eyes.

“Most glad to hear it, Megan.” Tom smiled thinly, his face never betraying the disgust he felt inside. Fragments of romantic movies flashed through his mind. Yuck, He would _never_ do anything of this kind with the girl in front of him.

“Yeah, the way you explain the material is awesome!” Anthony Goldstein agreed with Jones, his eyes wide and awed.

Michael Corner, a constantly sulking boy with dark hair and dark eyes, who somewhat resembled Snape, nodded in agreement.

Tom kept up the pretenses of sweetness and helpfulness, even if he was seething inside at their display of incapacity to do the most basic of tasks. Honestly, only a muggle would be dumb enough to not know the one hundred and twenty-five ways to reverse the effects of a botched up transfiguration.

They were sitting around one of the largest desks in the library. ‘They’ meaning the aforementioned students plus Ernie Macmillan and Justin Finch-Fletchley. The two Hufflepuffs, though, instead of working on their assignment, preferred to chatter about Snape’s intolerable behavior regarding Longbottom.

“I think I would be able to clarify some of the questions you have if only there was no more background noise.” Tom looked pointedly at Macmillan and Finch-Fletchley, his face so honest and understanding (people had different ways of relaxing), that everyone instantly glared at the interrupters, making both of them look down on their laps in mortification.

“Sorry,” Macmillan muttered. “It’s just… Sometimes Snape behaves as if he is… a Dark Lord or something.”

Jones shuddered, agreeing with him.

“Yeah. I think that he, you know, looks quite like Grindelwald with his dark glare. When mum told me stories about him, I was really, really frightened. I got kinda the same feeling I’m getting from Snape now.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if he was a maniac of some kind,” Finch-Fletchley muttered. “Spooky.”

“Itiots,” Goldstein said with haughtiness, making Tom look at him. It wasn’t often that the Ravenclaw’s attitude was so snappish. “If you want to compare a person to someone, at least get the facts right. Grindelwald is a blue-eyed blond. There’s no way Snape is like him.”

Ah. The matters of knowledge always turned Ravenclaws into quick-tempered monsters.

“Don’t you agree with me, Tom?”

 _‘I haven’t the foggiest what you are on about.’_ Tom hated not knowing. And he was completely clueless regarding that guy.

“I think that partial ignorance is forgivable considering our age,” he replied smoothly, the sweet smile never leaving his handsome face.

_‘No, it is not.’_

“I admit that, being muggle-raised, I find Hogwarts materials severely lacking in regard of Dark Lords. Can you tell me more about them?”

It was true. No matter how much Tom had looked for the information, very little could be found about the issue. It made him frustrated to not access the knowledge he needed. Here he was, finally having made a career choice, and he couldn’t even find out what it entailed.

Jones, Corner, and Goldstein traded uneasy looks. It was Corner who scratched the back of his head and replied.

“The topic of Dark Lords isn’t welcomed, Tom,” he began. “They are really nasty, and I hope there will never be any in my time.”

 _‘Tough luck,’_ Tom thought with smugness. He wouldn’t pass up the chance to hold such a sway over others. From what he had seen so far, Dark Lords were feared and respected, and their love of pain and torture was easily justified.

“What did they do to acquire such notoriety?” Tom wondered aloud, his lips stretched into a smile. When he saw others disturbed, he added: “I mean, I believe that people are always living beings, and I can’t easily justify prejudice against someone. So, until I fully understand what’s the deal with Dark Lords, I can’t pass my judgment.”

It made them see Tom in a new light; not only as the smartest student Hogwarts had seen so far, but as a person vastly concerned about the world around him and people’s well-being, one who was honest and just.

“It’s a very nice thing to say of you,” Corner said softly, looking at Tom with wonder, a tiny smile playing on his face.

“Not many are willing to understand the situation before criticizing a person or his ways,” Jones added, her face rosy and love-struck.

Tom tried to not cringe at the thought of acquiring another infatuated girl following him around. Greengrass and her obsession with him was enough, thank you.

The thought of a certain male Ravenclaw doing it wasn’t so distasteful, surprisingly.

“Anyway,” Goldstein cut in, a bit annoyed at how everyone was praising Tom, despite having done the same thing a few minutes ago, “the most recent Dark Lord was Gellert Grindelwald. He was against muggles and muggleborns, persecuting them or using them as slaves.”

“Thought all muggles should be killed, he did.” Macmillan shuddered, embracing himself.

Tom, for his part, didn’t understand how something they had never experienced could bring them any pain. Grindelwald had been long dead or imprisoned or something, long before they were born. Was it a Hufflepuff thing? Wait, no, Goldstein was a Ravenclaw…

“Did he work alone?” Tom asked, already knowing the answer, but no one could be too sure.

“Are you joking, man?” Finch-Fletchley asked, raising his eyebrows. “He couldn’t have done it all by himself. He had an army of followers.”

“Yeah, mostly purebloods. I bet that had Grindelwald been running amok now, Malfoy would have joined him.”

“Do tell me, Michael,” Macmillan agreed, throwing a look at Tom’s Slytherin badge. “No offense or anything, Tom, but most of the Slytherins kind of look like the guys for the job. Total annihilation, I mean.”

“Just look at Crabbe and Goyle.” Goldstein snorted into his fist, straw hair shaking with the motion. “Those blokes kill all my brain cells just by _standing_ there. I can’t believe how Malfoy puts up with them.”

“Well, to talk to Crabbe and Goyle you need to have the brains of a toothbrush. Malfoy has that, at least. Take pity on the poor thing; can’t even speak with someone else lest people don’t understand his righteous spittle.”

“Hah, I totally remember that one time when…”

Tom tuned his classmates’ voices out, not finding any use in this annoying chatter anymore. He had already played his part by helping them with the essay (McGonagall had given the same one to every House) and now, when they were so involved in banter and gossip, he could relax, if not on the outside, then by thinking.

Contrary to the way in which thinking brought headaches to many people, to Tom this activity had always been a soothing balm on his soul after long hours of hard work.

Acting was a bloody time-consuming endeavor and really took it out of a person.

Moreover, Tom had something of more importance to worry about. This Dark Lord-ing business… It all sounded great, and Tom knew this was what he had been dreaming about.

Nevertheless…

Gathering an army of loyal followers, learning and researching most obscure types of magic so as not to be bested and destroyed by someone, forming connection with important political figures of today, keeping up the pretenses of being someone he was not, annihilating enemies….

It was all not as bothersome as it was lengthy.

Tom knew that the one hundred years wizards usually lived wouldn’t be enough to do all this. Oh, of course, he could go through with his plans, yet he wouldn’t be around to rip the fruits of his arduous work.

He needed to find a way to prolong his lifespan, to make himself invincible to diseases and maladies, to protect his body against a cold bite of metal in his spine, to research long forgotten arts of magic, and, and, and…

Everything felt like an incredibly strenuous task, and Tom was sure that the overload of work, and haste, would make any joy at recreating a world disappear like house elves did during apparition – swiftly and leaving the echoes of annoying sound behind.

It was the first time Tom felt just how restricting, how suffocating mortality was.

It was the first time the search of the means to immortality became a pressing concern.

XXX

“And now you say _‘Hyacintho Fiammis’_ ,” Flitwick exclaimed merrily from his position on top of a pillar of books, cheering them on.

Tom flicked his wand, and tiny flowers with blue petals touched the surface of a special quill, which was charmed to not allow the flames, if they accidentally fell, burn the wooden desk it was being levitated above.

Tom watched with fascination as greedy petals consumed the quill, leaving behind nothing but ashes falling slowly to the wooden surface.

Bluebell Flames Charm wasn’t really designed to bring a lot of damage, so the protections put on them were needless, but better be safe than sorry. Even though it was a relatively quick and easy charm to use if you are camping and have to set up a bonfire.

The charm was also used in case someone needed to signal other wizards so they come to his help, because they were burning so slowly that a smallest amount of magic it took to ignite them was enough to last for a long time. It was especially useful if one was bordering on magical exhaustion.

Feeling bored stiff Tom glanced around the class. His eyes inevitably fell on the concentrated face of Potter, who was frowning a little as the minuscule fiery flowers he summoned weren’t enough to burn down the quill dangling teasingly before him.

“ _Hyacintho Fiammis_!” the emerald-eyed boy snapped once more, an irritated flare to his movements. The spell held a bit before disappearing as if put out by the touch of some invisible hand.

Tom could see that Potter was too forceful while swishing the wand, his wrist stiff and not lax like it should be. Their professor noticed it, too.

“No, Mr. Potter, you have to do it like this.” Flitwick levitated himself from the column of books he had been standing on and onto the floor, and walked to Potter, correcting his mistake.

When Flitwick was done with a bit more detailed explanation, Potter nodded, steely determination and willpower shining in his breathtaking green eyes. He positioned himself and clasped his hand around the wand the way the item should be held.

“ _Hyacintho Fiammis_!” he repeated again. This time, the charm worked and the quill was gone in no time; the blue petals of burning bluebells devouring it quickly.

“Ten points to Ravenclaw!” Flitwick cried out jovially, clapping his hands in enthusiasm. Pride was lacing his voice at the sight of his Ravenclaw being one of the most gifted students in his subject. “Very good work, Mr. Potter. Very good, indeed. Why, I believe that with some effort you can even beat Mr. Riddle someday!”

And off he went to check on the other students’ progress, humming a cheerful tune under his nose.

Tom almost snorted. Alas, it wasn’t dignified, so he settled on a tight-lipped smile in his teacher’s direction.

So far, only he and Potter, who ranked second in their year in Charms, had managed to successfully cast the spell. It made Tom feel… Not quite _happy_ , he was never happy, but content that his future follower wouldn’t be a burden but an independent wizard.

His other yearmates were faring much worse.

Bulstrode was almost there, a few steps away from making the charm work, but her pronunciation was lacking. Greengrass was snoring in the back row, something about having her share of beauty sleep, with only Davis occasionally poking her when Flitwick was looking disapprovingly their way.

“Bloody-!Mordred, why is it so difficult?” Malfoy shouted in fury. Tom lazily turned his head to the sight of the blond’s bright blue eyelashes and eyebrows.

To Tom it was obvious that Malfoy had been working his wrist too much, in irritated, jerky movements. It wasn’t a way to go – abruptness enhanced the colouring aspect of the spell while diminishing its burning quality.

“I’d think you’d know how to cast this charm well,” Zabini drawled, wand lying carelessly on the table. He had given up on the spell after the first few unsuccessful tries and was now criticizing everyone, especially Malfoy, with whom he had a frenemy relationship.

“And why is that?” Malfoy scowled, the desk in front of him becoming a baby blue.

“Wasn’t it the same spell your mother used to decorate the gardens at Malfoy Yule party?” Nott cut in, the irritable and impatient expression on his features mirroring Malfoy’s.

Tom wanted badly to lean in. There was nothing bad in getting to know the place he would go to next year. Zabini’s invitation to his mother’s ball certainly extended to the other parties of the season.

“Ah. You are talking about this…” The blond’s face looked pleased at the reminder of the splendid party the Malfoys had hosted not so long ago.

“You were there, too, Theo?” At Nott’s uncertain nod Zabini widened his eyes. “It’s not like you, my friend. Don’t you hate all those social gatherings?”

“Father dragged me with him.” Nott pulled a face at the memory, cringing. If the rumours Tom had heard about purebloods’ somewhat medieval methods of punishment, which coincided with those of that sick bastard Filch’s ideal ones, were actually true…

Tom couldn’t fault Nott for being weak-willed and do something he obviously disliked. Not everyone could be as perfect as Tom himself, after all.

“Aww, Theo, you weren’t all that sad about it.” Zabini smirked like a cat high on valerian roots, when he apparently came up with something incriminating. He leaned over his desk to say it so quietly that Tom had to strain his hearing to not miss it.

“I saw how you were dancing with Lilian Moon, right under those same flames. And not dancing only. Aren’t you engaged? What would your father say, Theo? Tsk, tsk.”

“Y-you!” Nott spluttered, his eyes wide and cheeks bright red at being caught.

Tom, from his part, raised an eyebrow in interest, his face otherwise a blank slate, and listened intently to the conversation happening behind him.

“You had no right to spy on me!”

“I didn’t.” Zabini shrugged without a care in the world. “Just came across you two snogging the lights out of each other. Really, have you completely forgotten about your father and your duty as the heir? And the girl is a _Hufflepuff_ , no less. Lord Nott won’t be happy.”

Nott went from tomato red to Snape pale in seconds.

“What do you-“

“Well, a nice new broom caught my eye. If I were to spend my whole free time flying on it, I could totally forget about this little incident. Adrenaline, excitement, and all, you see.”

It wasn’t that subtle, but a good manipulation nonetheless.

Tom firmly decided that he really liked Zabini far more than any of his Housemaes – the boy was sly and crafty enough, and occasional twinkles of insanity in his chocolate eyes didn’t escape Tom. Something he was eager to use for his benefit.

 _‘I need to court him to my side,_ ’ Tom thought, twirling a wand in his thin fingers. _‘First, of course, I have to know myself what kind of ideals I’m going to represent.’_

And he shouldn’t forget about Nott.

Zabini had gotten what he wanted, yes. But he had unwittingly made Tom learn about this secret, which left Tom with a quandary on how to use this possible favour he could pull out of Nott.

Well, he needed better robes, anyway. And books, too. It wouldn’t do for a Dark Lord to dress as a poor orphan, never mind that he was one.

“By the way, Mr. Potter.” Flitwick’s squeaky voice resounded throughout the room. Tom’s head immediately snapped to the face of his would-be ally. “I heard some rumours about your mother researching the Philosopher Stone?”

Everyone hushed, craning their heads to look at Potter, who was blushing under the attention despite probably being used to it with his parents so famous.

“Yes.” He tilted his head in agreement. “She is thinking about contacting its inventor so that he allows her to research the full properties of the stone with it. She believes she can invent a potion based on the elixir and heal people, not giving them immortality, but simply curing illnesses.”

 _‘Immortality?’_ Tom’s pupils dilated. Not so long ago he had thought about prolonging his lifespan.

“It’s a very noble cause, Mr. Potter,” Flitwick said with respect shining through his voice. “Your mother is a great woman for coming up with this project.

“I know.” Potter’s lips stretched into a little bit forced smile. “However, she still hasn’t received a response from Mr. Flamel. He might deny her the access. It’s a sought after invention, after all. I won’t be surprised if he doesn’t believe in her good intentions.”

“Never hurts to try. Besides, I think it would be terribly egoistical of him to keep the stone to himself and deny so many people the chance of overcoming their untreatable diseases.”

Tom barely kept himself from sneering.

_‘I don’t think it’s egoistical to keep one’s invention to oneself, no matter how useful it can be for everyone else.’_

Tom sure as hell wouldn’t agree to it.

Of course, if someone denied him what _he_ wanted, the boy would ensure that the consequences would be dire as they would be unforgettable.

Anyway, he now had a perfect solution for the prolonging of his life.

He just had to convince this Mr. Flamel to give the stone to him, for the greater good.

XXX

Tom was very good at convincing people. Unsurpassed in this art, even.

He could make the suspicious snakes do his bidding. He could force proud lions into becoming harmless kittens. He could make faithful badgers stab a knife into a person’s back, by the sheer force of his glare. He could make bookish ravens abandon all their dusty papers, and quills, and books.

Charming them with his politeness and good manners if they were magical. Sweeten them up, making them believe in his ideas like they were their own.

Using compulsions if they were muggles. It’s not like this filth deserved anything more than being a puppet.

Tom was perfect at everything he did, and it was said without any conceit.

Yet, how could he convince a person of anything if he didn’t know where to find him?

Tom barely suppressed the urge to run his hand through his perfectly combed hair in frustration, thanking whoever it was up there that no one was around to see this dark irritation coming through the carefully crafted mask of pleasantness and charm.

He sent the book lying innocently before him an aggravated glare, his fingers flickering fast through the pages.

It told him about the Philosopher’s Stone, the magical properties of which didn’t disappoint him at all.

Not only did the stone grant immortality, it turned various objects into gold. Considering how poor Tom actually was, he didn’t dismiss this ability like many others did. For some reason, for most wizards the stone was worth only because of its life-prolonging qualities.

“It isn’t like you to be so irritated about something,” a very familiar voice Tom could never forget remarked from behind him. Tom twisted on his chair only to have his suspicions confirmed.

Standing there, his eyes as bright as ever, hair longish and messy, and a shy half-smile on his stunning face, was Harry Potter, the object of Tom’s most frequent thoughts.

The brown-haired boy didn’t let breath get caught in his throat as he realized that this was the chance to ally himself with the scion of the Potter family and be done with those irrelevant ideas that sometimes came to his mind.

“You are… Harry Potter, I presume?” Tom asked, faking nonchalance and even letting a bite of coolness enter his voice. He was so secure he would win the boy to his cause; Tom wanted to establish the hierarchy between them already, passing this annoying stage of faked goodwill and pleasantries.

 “Yeah. Tom Riddle, right? My housemates have told me quite a bit about you. I was dying to meet you.” Potter scratched the back of his head, pink dusting his pale cheeks.

“I’m very pleased to hear it.”

And he was. He didn’t even have to court the boy – Potter had gone to him himself. Wasn’t it a sign?

“This, and…” Potter hesitated, not sure of how to continue. Tom could see that he wasn’t used to striking a conversation himself. “You were the one to help me during Snape’s first lesson, right? And many times after that. I never did thank you for it. Not many are ready to step up against their Head of House.”

“Think nothing of it,” Tom said and smiled sweetly, just like he had done with the other Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. It didn’t work on Slytherins, unfortunately.

And it didn’t work on Potter, too, who was looking him in the eye with deep suspiciousness shining through. Silence lasted a few seconds before Potter sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“Look, Riddle, I don’t know what games you are playing by charming everyone around you; I’m far from all those Slytherin tricks. I just wanted to thank you and have an offer for you.”

“Oh? What kind of an offer?” Tm stepped in. To think that this was intriguing was to say nothing. He felt more and more pleased with his quasi-follower’s astuteness by each passing moment.

“I noticed the books you are reading.” Potter looked pointedly at the stack of tomes on Nicolas Flamel and the Philosopher’s Stone.

“I heard about your mother wanting to research its properties. I was intrigued and decided to see what’s all the commotion about,” Tom lied, not revealing that he needed the stone for himself.

Potter just snorted.

“Let’s pretend I believe you. Anyway, my mother does want to cure people with it, but Mr. Flamel apparently has heard about this rumour before she could contact him. Now, he is nowhere to be found.”

Tom’s eyebrows creased in a frown as he contemplated how unfortunate this situation was. If even Healer Potter with her connections and her husband working in the Department of Law Enforcement couldn’t find the man… he had underestimated the problem of getting the stone.

Instead of scaring him, the thought brought only excitement with it; almost making Tom tremble with anticipation the same way he had done when he first saw Potter.

“So, he ran with his tail between his legs?”

“Yeah, kind of. Mother is renowned for her abilities. Now people truly believe she would be able to create the potion for the incurable diseases. Mr. Flamel probably thought it would be too bothersome to receive letters from all those stuck up politicians, each of them demanding him to give up his invention. It’s no wonder he fled.”

“Bothersome?” Tom raised his chin to meet Potter’s eyes, and berated himself for admiring the colour. He had never seen this shade of green before. “Not disastrous?”

“He has enough political clout to shut them all up, if he wanted to.” Potter shook his head slightly. “He is six hundred, for Merlin’s sake! He was famous before they stopped gnawing at their toenails.”

Tom’s lips quirked in amusement. “So, what is your offer about?”

Potter straightened out, the expression morphing from a slight grin into solemnity of a resigned person.

“I don’t really want to do it… But there is no choice. Look, Riddle, you can refuse if-“

“Let’s cut it to the chase,” Tom cut in with arrogant expression.

“I noticed how you are researching Flamel, and want to offer to do it together.” At Tom’s raised eyebrow, Potter hurried to elaborate. “Mother has a lot of work, and father, ever since- Well, no matter, the point is that they asked me to find out his whereabouts. You are smarter than anyone, hence why I came to you.”

Tom didn’t let the pleasant tingling in his chest at the compliment deter him from making a bargain. After all, he was so sure Potter was in his grasp already.

“What do I get out of the deal?”

Potter nibbled on his bottom lip, deep in thought.

“I will owe you a favour. Not to sound conceited or anything, but I _am_ the heir to the Potter name. I’d advise you to at least consider researching with me.”

“I’ll think about it,” Tom said smugly and smirked. He knew he would accept already, there was no considering.

And, no, he _didn’t_ do it because he wanted to befriend the boy. Friends seemed like something inconvenient and futile.

“See that you do that,” Potter muttered and rubbed his forehead, as if willing a headache go away.

They stayed silent for a few minutes, staring each other down. Tom’s hungry gaze was raking over the other’s body, not believing how this boy would be his first follower

Sometimes, dreams did come true.

Not that it was Tom’s dream to get closely acquainted with Potter, though. More likely, with his parents’ connections.

“So? What shall we start with?” Potter inquired with a small smile on his face.

His features unchanging, only hints of cordiality swimming in his dark eyes, Tom motioned at the nearest tome.

“This is the archive of the sightings of the most renowned but elusive inventors, Flamel included. Look through it while I will be looking into the list of his previous known homes. I doubt he will be returning there but we cannot overlook the possibility.”

“All right,” Potter said simply, tilting his head. “You- I admire you, really. I hope you won’t disappoint me.”

At the admittance Tom’s eyes widened marginally before warmth settled firmly in his chest, not going away no matter how much he willed it to.

Strangely enough, the feeling wasn’t unpleasant.

XXX

After their first real encounter, things spiraled upwards, not that they had been bad in the first place.

Tom was slowly winning points for Slytherins, much to the devastation of Malfoy, Nott, Parkinson (the only girl in their year who wasn’t smitten with Tom in the least, pining after Malfoy instead), and the like. Crabbe and Goyle weren’t intelligent enough to realize the change of the dynamics.

Everyone in Slytherin was more open-minded towards him now, seeing his progress and the respect he had brought to their House.

His achievements warmed a lot of Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, and occasional Gryffindors, to Slytherins. Slowly, the shadow of Salazar’s mistakes started to dispel; many students behaving friendlier towards the snake House.

Tom’s personal achievements weren’t that far away.

Nott had been furious when Tom hinted at the knowledge of his kiss with Moon. After their spat (on Nott’s part, Tom had just been staring at his opponent in detached disgust), the brown-haired boy was a proud owner of a hefty sum of money to buy new school robes and dress robes as well as books.

His first steps on the road to being a Dark Lord were a success, too. He was slowly charming the students around him, twisting their beliefs into whatever he wanted them to be.

Daphne Greengrass was still following him around, along with her sidekick Tracey Davis, both looking into his mouth for every word he spoke. Using his natural charm and meaningful glances, Tom regulated the distance between them, controlling it and not letting their relationship wither.

It wouldn’t do to lose the interest of the Greengrass’s elder daughter.  The family was too influential despite their policy of keeping themselves neutral.

Megan Jones and Ernie Macmillan, the Hufflepuffs he frequently helped to do homework, often sought out his company as well. Tom barely tolerated them but both could influence the other students of their House in the long run.

Patil sisters, their annoying giggles notwithstanding, always had a new batch of fresh gossip for him, keeping Tom in touch with the latest news both in Hogwarts and beyond.

What kind of dress Penelope Clearwater wore on her date, how many times a year Snape washed his hair, would Albus Dumbledore choke on his muggle treats and suffocate, did Lucius Malfoy really cheat on his wife with Regulus Black, were there any affairs or occurrences of group sex between the Marauders…

For all this and more, you could get answers from the Patil twins.

Many others strived for his attention or watched him with badly veiled interest. Tom either considered those people to be of no use to him or plain boring.

And then there was Potter.

The more Tom found out about the boy, the more he became fascinated.

Unfortunately, Potter didn’t give in to Tom’s delicate manipulations when the Slytherin wished to broaden his knowledge og the other’s life. In fact, Potter shrugged them all off with almost Gryffindorish ease and simplicity, or sidestepped Tom’s inquiries with almost Slytherin cunningness.

This mixture of intelligence yet reckless, daring ideas; slyness with disarming honesty, drew Tom in and let him experience a whole new side to a human relationship.

Every time he felt like smiling, he had to bite his cheek from the inside to avoid doing it – he was a Dark Lord, for Morgana’s sake, he did _not_ smile! – had to turn away in haste whenever Potter engaged once more in a fight with Snape, so that the aspiring Dark Lord wouldn’t rush in to save him.

One half of him wanted to continue his descend into those feelings of quasi-affection and fondness while the other contradicted it.

Those parts clashed, and battled against each other, and sparks flew, and everything was so bloody complicated.

Tom was sure he didn’t want to get too close to the other boy. Not yet. Not ever.

The decision would be made for him, and, regardless of his wishes, the pang of hurt would be unavoidable.


	5. A Heart of Stone

As long as Tom remembered himself, there had always been this fascination with pain.

He didn’t know where it had come from, how it had eloped, whether it would go away with age or stay with him for good, reminding of itself every day by sharp tugs of urges in his mind. The desire to see someone hurt was overwhelming. A burning craving, which reached the deepest corners of his soul unreachable for other feelings.

_ “There is inherent evil in this child. From the day Tom Riddle was dumped here, he has been able to make shivers run down my spine. And the animalistic terror I feel every time he stares at me cannot be explained by anything but his nature.” _

Mrs. Cole, the matron at the orphanage, had said that years ago, when Tom was a mere six years old. He had just made an army of toy soldiers viciously attack the boy trying to bully him by throwing outrageous insults and swinging his large fists.

The woman was talking to a newcomer, a youthful naïve caretaker listening to her superior with wide, glazed eyes and mouth opening in horror.

Mrs. Cole used to tell a lot of horror stories about the ‘nasty things’ he did to the other children. None of  things she told remained in his memory. Other than this phrase, of course.

Sometimes, Tom wondered if it could be true. If there was indeed a kind of inbred insanity lurking behind his dark unreadable eyes. The thought didn’t upset him as it would any other person.

Frankly, Tom didn’t want to change. It was a source of entertainment in his life, a way to pass time, just like reading or drawing or singing.

He had tried to act ‘normal’, like those ordinary muggles around him, but found them to be too annoying and the work not worth the effort.

They laughed too loudly, bawled their eyes out if something didn’t go according to their wishes, constantly sought a piece of advice, and were generally such a noisy nuisance that at times Tom wanted nothing more than to become a hermit, like those monks and saints.

Those people never cared for him, too scared of his glares and strange things to engage him in their games. In return, Tom never came to care for them.

Even now, as he watched Malfoy viciously hex Longbottom, he felt nothing but a surge of excitement rushing through him at the sight of the chubby blond’s body succumbing to the hex, making angry violet boils appear throughout the Gryffindor’s arms and face.

“The great lump, can’t even defend himself properly.” Malfoy sneered and pushed the crunched figure of trembling Longbottom with his foot, harshly and humiliatingly.

The Gryffindor let out a whimper but couldn’t do anything more – he was so terrified, and confused (why would they do that to him?), and the boils ached violently, making him breathless with physical pain, while the humiliation brought mental one to him.

“P-please… Stop it…” Longbottom whimpered pitifully, wiping the snot under his nose with the back of his shaking hand. The plea made Tom sneer at the pathetic display, while Malfoy’s eyes flared with sadistic fire. Crabbe and Goyle stood a bit to a side with twin idiotic grins on their faces.

Crabbe flexed his muscles in a menacing way and took a step forward. Malfoy’s wand was trained on Longbottom in case he decided to run away before Slytherins had had their fun.

Helpless tears streamed down the Gryffindor’s cheeks, and he sobbed once more. He saw Tom standing in the shadows behind Malfoy and not revealing his presence. Hope flared up in his eyes but died down just as quickly as it came when he saw Tom’s impassive face.

He would get no help here. That, Longbottom understood.

The flow of tears grew stronger.

Chuckling trollishly, Crabbe abandoned his former station and neared weeping Longbottom, his fist drawn high. He landed it in the Gryffindor’s face, making the boy below him cry out in pain and shield his face, boils still all over it.

“Oi,  Vin, stop it right here,” Malfoy said, his eyes drifting to a side. “Hexing him is one thing, hitting is completely different. I’d say we should go to the common. We still have this Transfiguration essay, remember?”

Tom stepped back, deeper into the shadows, when Crabbe turned around slowly and scratched the back of his head.

“Won’t he run away and tell on us?”

Tom was surprised at the first intelligent thought coming from the brute’s mouth. Moreover, it wasn’t often Crabbe or Goyle spoke. They were mostly either spectators or held down whatever person Malfoy decided to torment.

“I’ll glue his legs together with a hex or something. Then, he won’t do anything without evidence,” Malfoy replied unconcernedly. “Really, guys, let’s go. No getting physical.”

Malfoy was always like this, Tom reflected, sneering.

It never stopped to interest him how Slytherins all had different perceptions of torturing and favourite methods of doing it.

Malfoy, much to Tom’s astonishment, despite being a coward, was rather good at hexing. He had a wide variety of curses ready to be fired off, and good reflexes. Marcus Flint often remarked that his spontaneous reactions to movement would help him in Seeking.

Tom had no doubt that Malfoy’s wide repertoire of spells came from his father, whose remarkable library was mentioned in quite a few books.

His only defect was his overwhelming cowardice. Not only that, but Malfoy feared of physical harm – a pureblood thing, Tom supposed. Out of all Slytherins only the two of them resorted to fistfight and brute strength.

Crabbe was a bit smarter, though, both in marks and practical work. He even had the gall to defy Malfoy’s orders at times. He could hex his victims, too.

Nott was a bit like Malfoy. He was mostly quiet, only bragging about how he would get rid of muggles and mudbloods but never choosing fists over a peaceful talk.

He would sneer, trade insults, threaten with his father’s influence, but never really doing anything about it. Just bark and no bite.

Zabini used underhanded tricks, the most Slytherin way of harming someone. His knowledge of spells wasn’t as vast as Malfoy’s, and he botched up all his practicals, yet he knew how to transform a simple tingling charm into a destructive weapon.

Tom could clearly remember how he cornered up Dean Thomas and used this spell while the other boy was in the middle of practicing a charm for Flitwick’s lesson. His pronunciation came out wrong and instead of a Levitation Charm he summoned a swarm of wasps, which immediately attacked him.

Zabini himself managed to run away before they could hurt him.

Tom didn’t have yet the opportunity to prove himself in a fight; his charm worked full blast, enchanting the students from the other houses and making them either vying for his attention or neutral regarding him. Slytherins knew about his many allies and stopped antagonizing him.

So, all what was left for him were those covert observations to sate his craving for pain while he was hiding in the shadows, unseen to the random Slytherins tormenting whatever victim they could find.

Granted, this time Longbottom had seen him but Tom was pretty sure the boy wouldn’t dare to disclose this information to anyone.

And, even if he did, it’s not like anyone would believe the blond – it was Tom’s word against his.

“ _Gluten Crura_!” Malfoy intoned distinctively and pointed his wand at Longbottom after a few precise motions.

Longbottom, still on the ground, felt his legs being brought together by an invisible pull. No matter how hard he tried, any attempts at disentangling himself from the imperceptible web of the spell were futile.

“That’s for being so weak,” Malfoy mocked, tucking his wand into the holster and stepping away from the frightened figure. He turned to look at Crabbe and Goyle.

“Let’s go, my faithful sidekicks!” he said almost jovially.

“What is a side-kick?” Goyle asked dumbly.

Malfoy scrunched up his face in derision and squashed the urge to facepalm.

“Nothing. McGonagall and her essay are waiting for us.”

They went on in the direction opposite of Tom’s hiding place, Malfoy talking and his goons nodding at all appropriate and not so appropriate moments.

Tom, from his part, looked at Longbottom one last time before deciding that the show was over and waling on to the library.

A wonderful study session with Potter was waiting for him.

He didn’t notice the occasional bounce to his step.

Nor did he notice that Longbottom had managed to stand up and was now jumping some feet behind him, his lips pursed into a thin line and tears never stopping as he watched the retreating figure of Tom Riddle.

XXX

Tom barely kept himself from scowling when what could be an enticing lesson about Cerberuses turned into a complete bore rivaling only to Binns’s lessons, all thanks to Quirrell’s annoying stutter.

“W-what is the b-best way to act w-when y-y-you encounter a Cerberus?” their Defense against the Dark Arts professor forced out through his stutter, looking ready to pass out at the mere idea of meeting one.

A few hands immediately sprang up into the air, Tom’s and Potter’s both among them. No surprise here; Potter ranked about third or fourth in their year while Tom was the top student.

“Mr. P-Potter?”

“To play a musical instrument, sir,” Potter replied politely with a small smile on his face. Tom found it outrageous and offensive that the black-haired boy sympathized with this stammering idiot.

Unfortunately, they weren’t that close for Tom to do anything about it.

Later, though. Tom would need to reshape Potter’s strange morals and naïve beliefs the younger wizard sometimes expressed.

“And w-who can a-a-answer why is that? Mr. R-Riddle?”

Tom straightened out in his seat at the sound of his name.

“Music, especially when the instrument is a flute, affects Cerberus’s nerve endings and puts him to sleep. That’s the most scientific explanation.”

“E-excellent! Ten p-points to Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Does someone w-wants to add a-any more i-information?” Quirrell asked from behind his desk, his back hunched and hands trembling despite the attempted grin on his face.

“They are afraid of blinding light,” Potter added from his seat after raising his hand. “Such spells as _Lumos Maxima_ can easily render them immobile for a few minutes.”

“It’s a-a s-surprising thing f-for you to know, M-mr. Potter,” Quirrell exclaimed in wonder. “Five p-points to Ravenclaw!”

Potter leaned back and glanced at Tom, throwing him a small victorious smile, to which Tom replied with an upturn of his lips, so slight it was a wonder Potter had caught it.

They had kind of a competition going on between them in all joined Slytherin and Ravenclaw classes.

Tom found it strange how he hated the competition with that stuck up mudblood Granger who wasn’t any competition at all, but liked this unspoken contest with Potter.

Maybe, it had a lot to do with the fact that the other boy expressed his ideas in his own words, not sounding like he was reciting a paragraph from an obscure book but as if he had pondered at the issue for a long time and came to his own conclusion.

Potter was also unobtrusive, never rushing to answer each of his professor’s questions. This calmness added up to his charm.

Of course, most of the time Potter lost the little game between the two of them; while smart, he wasn’t anywhere hear Tom’s knowledge and his way of learning material allowed him for a few mistakes, so even Granger was considered better.

Tom turned his attention to the stammering idiot explaining other ways of diverting a Cerberus’s attention. Strangely, none of them involved killing, which left Tom a bit disappointed.

If he was ever going to encounter this type of danger, he was going to damn well insure that the dog would be dead, not merely incapacitated. Magical creatures were notorious for being resilient and he wouldn’t take chances.

“Professor!” Someone from the Ravenclaw rows called out. Judging by the voice, it was Kevin Entwhistle, a goofy Ravenclaw brunet with unstoppable mouth. Really, he never held his tongue, even at Snape’s lessons.

It was admittedly entertaining to watch his skin change into all the colours of the rainbow at every Potions lesson.

“Y-yes, Mr. Entwhistle?” Quirrell asked, his hand halting midair. He turned to look at his student, forgetting to finish the sentence he had been writing on the blackboard.

“Can you tell us about your latest trip to Albania?”

“I-I’m afraid this isn’t-“

“Please, Professor!” Morag McDougal, Entwhistle’s accomplice in slacking off, butted in with puppy dog eyes. “We can learn everything by ourselves and write a quiz or test or something, if you want us to.”

They all knew Quirrell would forget everything about the promise as soon as they exited the classroom.

“W-well, if y-you wish to…” Quirrell trailed off, playing with his fingers in a hesitant manner, which always disgusted Tom.

“Of course we do!” Zabini claimed, bored with writing down the material from the blackboard.

A guy can only so much swap paper notes with Malfoy and Nott. It was no wonder Zabini was getting tired of it after the year of the same routine.

“Is it true that you’ve met a real vampire there?” came the first question.

“Do they really have, you know, fangs?”

“Of course they do, dumbass, they are _vampires_!”

“You don’t have to be so mean about it, Turpin! Anyway, Professor, are they really as dangerous as people claim?”

“Are _you_ a vampire now?”

Tom sneered at the stupidity of the last question. Obviously, if Quirrell had been a vampire, he wouldn’t have been a teacher. Magical creatures like vampires and werewolf had no business in Hogwarts among young children.

Quirrell chuckled nervously and threw up his hands into the air, as if in defense from the onslaught of questions.

“N-no, I’m a-afraid I’m not a v-vampire, Miss Parkinson. Actually, the only i-interesting thing that happened to me t-there was coming across a v-very interesting s-secret.”

Everyone leaned forward, curiosity gleaming in their eyes. Even Tom couldn’t help himself. From the corner of his eye he could see that Potter couldn’t contain his eagerness, too.

“What kind of a secret, Professor.”

“I w-was walking through a f-forest – fresh air i-is very good for m-my health, you see – when I saw s-something glimmer i-in the s-sun, sticking out f-from a tree.”

“Was it gold?” Stephen Cornfoot whispered reverently, his eyes full to the brim with greediness.

“The Philosopher’s Stone?” Daphne Greengrass asked, apparently remembering their Charms lesson. Tom noted how the question made Potter’s head snap to the blonde.

“No, y-you are b-both wrong, u-unfortunately.”

“Some long-forgotten treasure, perhaps?” Zabini suggested, twirling his quill in his hands disinterestedly.

“T-that’s closer t-to the truth.” Quirrell nodded and his lips quirked in a twitchy movement. “I-it was a d-diamond t-tiara, probably a copy of R-rowena Ravenclaw’s t-tiara.”

Someone in the back rows gasped. Tom’s face lit up with interest; he remembered vaguely hearing about this heirloom but never cared enough to research. It was said to be long-lost, after all.

Its beautiful legend, however, caused countless copies to be created. Each creator claimed that his was the true one, but those claims were always proved wrong. Sometimes, death awaited eagerly the wizard daring to sully Rowena Ravenclaw’s name by creating those fakes.

Tom, personally, found the ways of torture an engaging read.

“Is it the real one, Professor?” Nott asked from his seat, for the first time his attention fully concentrated on a teacher. Tom enjoyed the rare sight while it lasted.

“I-I think it’s a v-very good copy,” Quirrell replied. “It d-did improve my m-memory while I was w-wearing it.”

Everyone turned to their friends and excited whispers spread throughout the classroom like a wildfire, drowning out Quirrell’s attempts at restarting the lesson.

Tom tuned out Greengrass, whom he allowed to sit next to him this lesson. She, Davis, and Bulstrode all took turns to sit with him, a fact Tom found rather amusing. He still fuelled their crushes on him while feeling only disgust and slight smugness regarding them.

Being friends with Greengrass brought a lot of prestige among his housemates and Tom could often walk up to an upperclassman and ask for their help in pointing out secret places to practice magic or smuggling in forbidden stuff.

Not that Tom had any of the latter yet – the funds were just enough to buy decent clothes and books – but his choice of his future career left him with doubts in regards of the legality of it.

He knew he would have to buy restricted books and Dark artifacts, and was actually looking forward to it.

If only certain someone shared his excitement.

XXX

So, most of the time Flamel used to live at 51 Rue de Montmorency, it was his main home where he and his wife Perenelle spent most of their life creating potions and conducting alchemic experiments.

One address, Tom already had.

A shame that he had to cross it out as the most obvious hiding place for the man and the Stone.

It turned out that most of the addresses in the list he had been given by Madame Pince were forsaken or not existing anymore – simply temporary homes for Nicolas and Perenelle in their many travels.

Their house in Paris was the most plausible option to live in because it was very close to the centre of French trade, Ruette de Eclat, the counterpart of Britain’s Diagon Alley. Flamel could easily get into any Potions gatherings or scientific congregations from there.

Now, however, when he decided to hide… There wasn’t any mention of his other permanent houses.

Moreover, he had travelled so far and wide that Tom didn’t know where to even begin his search. India, France, Great Britain, Ireland, America, Italy, African countries, Russia, China, Japan…

It all made Tom’s head dizzy with overwhelming sensation of helplessness. Never before in his life he had felt as incapable as now, never had he found himself in a situation where neither his wit nor his charm could help him.

He gritted his teeth in frustration and snapped another book shut.

Hearing soft steps, Tom stiffened before realizing who it was and feeling corners of his lips lift.

“You are late again, Potter,” he said, keeping his voice dispassionate despite the familiar by now warmth in his chest. It wouldn’t do to let his inner feelings of irrational longing be known.

Tom was surprised when no answer came to him, and turned around.

A resounding slap met his cheek.

Tom held up his hand to the slowly spreading rosy colour on his cheek, staring in disbelief right into the angry eyes of Potter. The emerald-eyed boy was breathing hard, cheeks dusted with pink and chest heaving.

“Care to explain?” Tom asked coldly, his hand still holding his sore cheek. For being so seemingly fragile Potter packed quite a punch.

“Neville told me everything!” Potter shouted furiously before regaining his composure and breathing slowly.

Understanding dawned on Tom and he cursed the day Malfoy and his goons attacked Longbottom.

 The thought that he could have easily saved the Gryffindor or reverse the effects of the hexes never crossed his mind. Well, even if it did, he could ignore it.

“Oh? And, pray tell me, what did you learn? Did he make up a lie that I bullied him? Cursed him senseless, perhaps? Almost killed him? Whatever his overactive Gryffindor imagination tells him.”

By now Potter had completely calmed down, probably because of the slap he had given to Tom. After long time of socializing with Greengrass, Tom understood that sometimes things like hitting someone or something was stress-relieving. Maybe, Potter was the same way?

“No. You didn’t help him when you could,” Potter said coolly and brushed his fringe away from his eyes. Tom was glad now that black hair couldn’t obtrude the brilliant green.

“So? Even if I did see him bullied – which I didn’t – I would have never been able to help him. Slytherins hate muggleborns, remember?”

Tom put on his best sincere expression.

Potter bent his eyebrows in indignation.

“Yeah, as if I don’t know how they are dependent on you to win the Cup.”

Was it strange of Tom to feel happy that Potter, his future right hand man, saw through his façade?

“We should break the deal.”

At this, he wasn’t so pleased.

“Potter, you promised-“

“I am disappointed in you, Riddle,” Potter cut in with a regretful frown on his face. His fists clenched and unclenched, and bottom lip trembled almost invisibly. “Neville is my friend. I wanted to get to know you. I overlooked the way you manipulate my friends and my housemates, how you cruelly play on their desire to befriend you, how you charm the professors to do your bidding.”

Tom’s chest heaved in relief, and something pleasant tingled in his chest at Potter’s admittance of wishing to get to know him.

“See?” he began, standing up and noticing how the height difference became visible; he was a full head taller than the other boy. “There is no need to quit researching with me. We can-“

“No. I thought you were different from Malfoy and his little group of sidekicks. It seems like I am sorely mistaken.”

Potter turned to leave, if only to hide the regret Tom could clearly see in his eyes.

“Are you going to tell everyone about the way I manipulate them?” he shouted after Potter in a desperate, almost panicked attempt at holding him back.

The shorter wizard’s back stiffened before Potter continued walking.

“Don’t insult me, Riddle. Someday, the truth will come out. It doesn’t need my assistance.”

When Tom fully realized he was alone in a remote corner of the huge library, he couldn’t keep himself from kicking a chair in irritation, no matter how undignified he would seem. No one would find him there, and Tom relished in the knowledge.

Suddenly, without Potter there, the dusty tomes on Flamel didn’t seem so fascinating anymore.

XXX

The Great Hall was decked out in Slytherin green and silver trademark colours, for the seventh or eighth year in a row.

Tom was sitting in the middle of first years, even Malfoy grudgingly admitting his intelligence and help in winning the House Cup. Zabini was boasting how it was all his merit and without him Tom would have never had enough prompting to gain so many points.

The only thing darkening Tom’s mood was Potter’s continuing silence.

Even now, when the brown-haired Slytherin caught Potter’s glance, the boy quickly turned away and drank some pumpkin juice.

From his High table, Dumbledore stood up, a blinding smile on his wizened face.

“Another year gone!" Dumbledore said cheerfully. "And I must trouble you with an old man's wheezing waffle before we sink our teeth into our delicious feast. What a year it has been! Hopefully your heads are all a little fuller than they were...”

“He has so little faith in his students…” Bulstrode muttered, not looking up from her romantic novel. As Tom found out, the girl enjoyed reading for the sake of reading, whether it was a treatise, a scientific book, or a badly-written fiction novel.

“You have the whole summer ahead to get them nice and empty before next year starts... Now, as I understand it, the house cup here needs awarding, and the points stand thus: In fourth place, Hufflepuff, with three hundred and twelve points.”

Hufflepuffs were mostly used to it, so they cheered loudly despite being in the last place.

"In third, Gryffindor, with three hundred and fifty-two.”

All the lions looked dejected, only Longbottom clapping with a shy grin on his face, and Hufflepuffs.

“Ravenclaw has four hundred and twenty-six.”

Tom felt a surge of irritation pass through him at the sight of Potter being clapped on his shoulder and congratulated by his housemates.

 “And Slytherin, four hundred and seventy-two.” Dumbledore finished, his voice almost drowning in the sea of cheers and squeals of happiness.

“Yay, Riddle, I can’t believe I’m saying this to a mudblood but I’m glad we’ve got you,” Zabini exclaimed cheerfully, taking a sip of his pumpkin juice.

“I have good news for you, guys!” Malfoy cut in. “I told my father-“

“ _Complained_ , more like it.”

“-about Quirrell’s horrendous way of teaching. He contacted the Board and-“

“Are you saying what I think you are saying?” Nott asked, wide-eyed.

“If you would let me finish,” Malfoy snapped at the interruption. “Yes, yes, this stuttering fool is sacked. Happy?”

“Whaa, you are my hero!” Parkinson exclaimed, throwing herself on the blond and ignoring his choked coughs of ‘not enough air’.

“That’s a good thing you have done here for once,” Zabini said with approval.

“Can’t believe I am saying this to a Malfoy but I’m glad we’ve got you,” Tom said haughtily and raised his goblet of pumpkin juice in mock-salutation.

At least, he knew that next year they would have a normal teacher and have normal, educational lessons.

 _‘And,’_ Tom’s eyes narrowed _, ‘I shouldn’t forget about the Zabinis and the party. Finally, I will be introduced to the circled I belong to.’_

All his classmates had passable marks and he would see them next year, which would prove to be immensely entertaining for different reasons.

The existence of the trace really put him out but Tom was sure he would find a way to circumvent it before his seventh year was up. If not, he would be completely disappointed in himself.

Tom observed Potter chatting excitedly at the Ravenclaw table; dimly listened to Greengrass talk about her impressions of their first year; felt Dumbledore’s considering eyes on him as well as Snape’s dark gaze; thought about Salazar Slytherin, Grindelwald, Dark Lords in general, and Nicolas Flamel; sipped at his pumpkin juice, and couldn’t believe how he had ever lived in a world different from this.


	6. Second Year

Tom’s hands were itching.

Oh, no, it wasn’t a longing satisfied by simple scratching. He felt the need to unleash the majestic power thrumming beneath his skin, to feel the smooth wooden surface of his yew wand, to see the beams of coloured light  shooting out of the tip…

Alas, it was impossible at the moment.

The list of tings a muggleborn should know that Tom had been given the week before leaving Hogwarts by a scowling Snape clearly indicated that fact.

He had been so happy at the thought of experimenting with those filthy muggles up to that moment that the weight of severe disappointment was almost crushing. Needless to say that the word ‘trace’ wasn’t his favourite now.

Tom tightened his lips into a thin line and stared at the stack of books lying innocently on the table in front of him.

The playroom he was sitting in was void of children, all thanks to his persuasion skills. His glare was as threatening as ever, the year spent at Hogwarts pretending to be sweet and humble having done nothing to diminish its dark force. The small kids had run off mumbling something about spending time playing with the caretakers.

The mere memory brought a smug smirk on Tom’s face. He couldn’t help but be satisfied that he could still cause such reactions out of people.

In that sense, the orphanage was more of a home to him than Hogwarts, which he had come to love in a weird way because of all the magic around and inside the building. In the orphanage, though, he needn’t bother with acting most of the time. People there were too scared of him anyway and he had nothing to lose if his real personality ever got through.

This Dark Lord-ing business really took it out of the man; all the gathering of allies and followers, learning powerful spells, plotting, scheming…

‘It will be rewarding in the long run,’ Tom promised to himself, his long fingers flipping through the pages in boredom, eyes trailing through the lines of words to fish out the information he needed.

The books were from the Moon’s home library. He had cornered her some days before leaving and hinted at her and Nott’s stint during the party. Then he had mentioned his desire for removing the trace and expressed his hopes in finding some material.

Voila – the girl had been cowed enough to promise him a few tomes on this thing called ‘warding’, most of which was way over Tom’s head. It annoyed him how he couldn’t understand the intricate webs of runic symbols and weird sums and numbers all over the worn pages of the dusty books.

Lilian Moon’s father was a respectable curse-breaker, whose reputation wasn’t as good as to cover his only daughter’s shameful placement in Hufflepuff. In fact, the girl’s unfortunate Sorting was enough to make them the laughing stock of pureblood society.

While Light wizards tolerated the girl and were even kind and understanding of her sensitive condition, the family was now banned from most of Dark pureblood gatherings and clubs. Their presence wasn’t wanted in any kind of private party, and old Sibald Moon had to work with goblins now instead of people, too tired of the sneers and derogatory remarks he was showered with at work.

The relationship between Theodore Nott and Lilian Moon was impossible and in all ways forbidden. If it ever got out, no one would be save from Lord Nott’s fury. A fact Tom didn’t hesitate to use.

He had even coaxed the girl into asking some of the upper years to disguise the books so that muggles wouldn’t read them and to non-magical people they would seem like ordinary maths and physics textbooks.

Initially, Tom had thought about asking Flitwick to do cast the glamours but realized that the man would wonder what Tom was going to do with the huge tomes. Arithmancy and Ancient Runes won’t be until their third year, after all. Reading the books now would be too early and suspicious.

Tom doubted he could march up to the man and tell how he was going to banish the Trace.

It was a feat deemed impossible. Not even the most renowned wizards of their time had removed it. Tom figured it was a great way to prove his worth and powers and intelligence to his future followers. Not like he had to prove anything to himself – he believed he was better than all of them put together.

‘The problem is to make others see it,’ Tom thought, taking a pen into his hands – it would be stupid to use a quill in the muggle setting – and writing down a few notes he could actually understand from the entire text.

He certainly hadn’t anticipated all the trouble he had to face.

Arythmancy was far from muggle Numerology those silly girls were so fond of, often getting together to calculate the number of their birth name, the city they lived in and how it affected their study, and the effect their birth date had to on their love life. If the results were disappointing, they were soon forgotten and the girl turned to any other source of predicting one’s future. Otherwise, they flocked together in a tight circle and giggled madly, almost like maniacs.

Tom’s books clearly said that there were few lines of true Seers, and they were protected, their identity hidden from public. Even their Divination teacher at Hogwarts was rumoured to be a fraud.

With Ancient Runes, things were a bit different.

Alphabets were in every book, but the effect the runes had put together was more difficult to predict.

Audrean Harper’s _New Recounts of the Old Ways_ featured something called ‘genera practice’, which was mentioned in every other paragraph. Even Tom’s genius mind couldn’t understand what it could possibly mean.

At the same time, _Britain’s Compendium of Runic Alphabets_ specifically said that any decent curse-breaker should just choose his favourite alphabet and stick to it, entwining the symbols in intricate designs of spells, including those for breaking wards and traces.

It was all bloody confusing, which made Tom wonder if perhaps there was a way to avoid all this hustle. He was convinced that by the time he was finished figuring out how those things work, the trace would have already dissipated by itself.

And then there was this Parseltongue thing to worry about. And Flamel. And, more importantly, this blasted _Potter_ who wouldn’t leave his mind for the entirety of the holiday.

The boy was a rather good researcher and knew more about the Wizarding World than Tom, having been raised there. He could sometimes point out things Tom would never notice by himself. The future Dark Lord was already used to the commodity, so he couldn’t imagine the research on Flamel without Potter helping him out. It would have to be put on hold until Potter comes to him feeling guilty and ready to make up for their quarrel.

For the first time in his life, Tom felt remorse at something. Really, how difficult it would have been to tell Malfoy to stop cursing Longbottom? The boy was so weak and useless it wasn’t truly fun watching him squirm anyway…

 _‘I guess I have to invent another revenge for him,’_ Tom thought darkly. A boy who had checked on playroom to find his friend ran away screaming at the glare _. ‘Honestly, going around ruining my relationships with people… How inconsiderate of him.’_

First, though, he had to worry about the Trace.

And Tom knew exactly whom to ask.

When there were so much fun things happening and he had to get ready for his undertakings, he couldn’t afford being magic-less.

XXX

Diagon Alley was exceptionally crowded this day.

People were going around in small groups, worried parents checking on lists of school stuff to buy and preventing their children from spending too much on useless trinkets. Florean Fortescue’s was completely swallowed with people of all sorts, and the same went to any other tea houses and bars and restaurants. Everyone flocked to window shops and discussed this or that item brightly, and the cacophony of it all reminded Tom too much of King’s Cross Station.

He barely kept himself from sneering. Those people with their useless talks got too much on his nerves for his comfort.

He had been owled a small purse of money from school trust for orphans, and Nott had given him a decent amount of galleons already for keeping his mouth shut.

Blackmailing was good, Tom reflected. He should certainly do it more often.

His attention was snapped away when he saw familiar sleeked back blond hair.

 _‘What fantastic luck I have,’_ Tom thought sarcastically _, ‘to see Malfoy here of all places.’_

Although he was intrigued by the expression the blond boy were. It was one of pride, certainly, but of a sophisticated kind, not his usual obnoxious one.

Only then Tom noticed the tall man accompanying his classmate.

His appearance mirrored his son’s greatly; the same hair if not a bit on the platinum side, the same grey eyes and the same arrogant, a tad constipated expression on his face. The air of refinement around him, though, was one thing Draco utterly lacked. The man was cold and arrogant but Tom was sure the man had achieved something he was proud of.

Tom was sure the man would make it to Zabini’s party. He could barely contain the shivers of excitement.

His attention was diverted from his musings when the distinguishable couple took a turn and went in a completely different direction from the one families purchasing goods for school went in. The place the Malfoys (the blond man couldn’t be anything else but Draco’s father, after all) were heading to a shady-looking lane.

Tom wavered a bit before deciding that since he hadn’t acquired anything yet he could as well indulge his curiosity and see for himself what the Malfoys were up to. The family was too important in the Wizarding World for him to let go of an opportunity for finding some blackmail material.

After all, while Malfoy Senior’s stony face remained ice-cold and betrayed nothing, his son’s constant fidgeting and turning around did tell to an observer there was something fishy going on.

Tom’s footsteps were silent in the loud blabber of the crowd and he didn’t have any bags to carry as of yet. His tall for his age but still short in comparison to adults stature allowed him to slip into the dark, twisting alley after the pair undetected.

The hanging around wizards all looked dodgy, many with a ruffled appearance and dirty smudges on their pale skins. A hag selling dog eyes tried to approach Tom but the force of his disdainful glare drove her away.

 _‘If I weren’t already set on becoming a Dark Lord, I would have fancied the idea of being engaged in espionage. It’s so fun!’_ Tom thought, a thrill of anticipation running through his body.

He was careful to look like he belonged and keep a few feet away from the Malfoys. He also turned his head to sides and observed different goods on display in shop windows. This way, even if that annoying pest of his classmate did notice him (which was highly unlikely), Tom could claim to have entered the alley to explore.

His sharp eye caught the Malfoys entering a large shop, probably the most well-looked after in the whole street. The letters above said ‘Borgin and Burkes’.

He inched closer, and though the shop windows were rather dusty and a bit dirty in the corners, he could distinctly see the inside of the building. The shop – which, judging by the products on display, specialized in some kind of antiquities or rarities – was dimly lit and its walls were lined with shelves. Tom could also outline a large black cabinet and a hefty stone fireplace.

A customer, some dark-haired man with a refined air around him, entered the store, and Tom saw the opportunity to stealthily slip in. Thanks to the man’s slight bulkiness, he knew his petite figure wouldn’t be distinguishable.

‘I’m proud of having put on black clothes today,’ Tom thought, hiding in a shadow just behind a coat-hanger with a skull on the top of it and some kind of ritual robes hung on it. The robes (or were they coats?) were loose and made of thick material, thus covering him completely.

He thought to have caught some movement inside of the cabinet but it could have been his imagination.

Less than a second later his attention was diverted by the conversation going on in front of him, when the Malfoys and an oily man turned around to greet the most recent customer.

“Oh, Mr. Lestrange! What a delight!” The shop-keeper – it couldn’t have been anything but him – exclaimed and rubbed his hands covertly. “First Mr. Malfoy, now you.”

“It seems like you are having a field day today indeed, Borgin,” Lestrange drawled, snapping his feet together when he reached the trio.

“Rodolphus,” Malfoy Sr. said shortly in greeting. His long fingers clutched his son’s shoulder tighter, prompting him to greet the man too, which Draco did.

“So?” Borgin started after a short pause. “What is it you need today, dear sirs?”

Malfoy Sr. opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by his son.

“Father promised me a birthday present,” Malfoy cried out in excitement, his eyes shining. Judging by the press of Malfoy Senior’s lips, it wasn’t the best thing to say.

Borgin didn’t notice, however, and blathered on.

“Ah, yes, yes, birthday presents for such a charming Young Master! How about the Hand of Glory?”

Borgin gestured at a wrinkly hand lying on a cushion. Tom was mesmerized it immediately, something grotesque in it drawing him in.

“You have to insert a candle and it will give you the light only you can see. Best friend of thieves, it is! Ah, Mr. Malfoy, your son has a fine taste!”

“I do hope my son will amount to something better than a thief.” Mr. Malfoy’s lip curled and he ignored the quiet snicker of Lestrange.

“The what _are_ you going to buy me? I want-“

“We have chosen to-“

“Cut it short, Lucius. I find nothing endearing in your family-talks. Mordred sees I have my own headache to worry about, and do believe me when I say that my wife is worse than any bout of migraine.”

Tom’s opinion of the man just escalated higher.

He tried to recall all the things he had heard about the Lestranges but there wasn’t much.

They were an ancient pureblood family with a lot of political clout but preferred to hone their duelling skills and stay a mystery to others rather than mingle with the upper circles.

The only particularly notable Lestrange these days was Bellatrix Lestrange, about whom Tom had heard all kinds of rumours but chose not to believe them without proof.

Honestly, Tom doubted the woman truly gathered the blood of virgins to stay useful forever.

“How can I be of service today?” Borgin’s voice brought Tom back to reality. “An associate of mine from China-“

“We are both here to sell today, not to buy,” Lestrange cut in again with an impatient scowl twisting his aristocratic features.

“To sell?” the stooping man asked faintly.

“James Potter took it into his head to conduct another bout of raids in search of Dark artifacts,” Malfoy Sr. said with a grimace of distaste on his face. “Some of the items at my home are not exactly up to the Ministry’s standards, if you understand what I mean.”

“I am here for the same purpose. It won’t be anything disastrous if the Dark objects in the manor are discovered but I’d still like to avoid this possibility. Here is the list of those items.”

They both handed their own lists to Borgin, who fished out a pair of pince-nez out of his trousers pocket and fixed them on his face.

“Hmm… Let me see…”

The man quickly scanned the list, seemingly not minding Rodolphus’s irritated tapping of his foot.

“I do have some business to attend to,” he drawled coldly.

“About this gathering in Paris?”

“Someone is waiting for me nearby.”

They quickly started bargaining over the items and, while Draco wandered around the store in boredom, Tom concentrated really hard on understanding the mechanics of trade and conducting business.

It wouldn’t do to be an uneducated Dark Lord. Someone could find this weakness and rob him of his funds, and Tom would have no money to support his glorious army (not that he knew yet who or what he was going to fight but in theory anyway).

When they were finished with selling Dark objects, Rodolphus looked around, stopping by the cabinet briefly with a slight smirk of amusement crossing his lips, and neared a necklace of opals.

Tom noted how the man was wary of touching it for some reason. Then again, it _was_ a Dark object despite its outward magnificence, and could do almost anything to a person.

“How much?” he asked curtly.

“One thousand galleons,” Borgin said, biting his lips. His eyes flashed with greed.

Tom’s eyes widened. It was one hell of a price.

“I’m buying it.”

Even Malfoy was flabbergasted at that.

“What for? Rodolphus, I know you like expen-“

“ _Do_ tell me if I asked for your opinion, Lucius.”

The blond man regained his composure and his entire posture was once again frosty and impassive, his cane clutched in his hand.

“Come, Draco. We have to buy you the books.”

With a curt nod of goodbye to the shopkeeper, the man whirled around on his heels and exited the shop with Draco in tow.

To say that Tom was relieved his torture by enduring Malfoy’s stupidity was over was to say nothing.

Lestrange paid and followed the Malfoys a few minutes later, still looking strangely at the cabinet. Tom’s curiosity turned into nervousness when he could feel the man’s eyes on himself but, luckily, he strode past the hiding Tom and out of the shop.

Borgin muttered something angrily under his breath and threw a baleful glare at the locked door before crossing the room and disappearing somewhere in the back.

Cautious, Tom waited a few moments before slowly stepping out of the shadow, just as the cabinet door buckled under someone’s weight and a small figure stumbled out of it, dark gray robes and delicate face covered in cinders.

To his astonishment, Tom realized that the person rubbing his eyes behind his glasses was none other than Harry Potter.

“You!” The younger boy couldn’t suppress the surprised gasp.

The sound of a scraping chair resounded from the backroom, and before Borgin could discover them, Potter grabbed Tom’s slightly larger hand and dragged him to the exit. When they were out and hurried down a few stores, he released the hand. Tom felt unexpected emptiness overcome him but shrugged the unpleasant feeling off.

“What were you doing there?” he asked instead, contemplating whether Potter had forgi- well, there was nothing to forgive, but whether Potter had forgotten about this spineless Longbottom idiot.

Judging by his cross expression, this wasn’t the case.

“My godfather thought it’d be fun to watch what would happen if I were to eat while saying the Floo destination,” Potter mumbled, his jaw set and eyes flashing with annoyance and exasperation.

‘It’s good I don’t have any relatives, then,’ Tom breathed with relief. He would certainly be thrown in Azkaban for revenge on the unlucky person daring to pull it off on him.

“Here you are,” the familiar voice behind them drawled. Tom whirled around to meet the cold brown eyes of Lestrange, the man from the shop.

“Uncle Rodolphus,” Harry blurted out, his eyes wide but not frantic or worried.

“Harry.” His tone held hints of warmth in it. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you two in the shop.”

“You did?” Harry asked, his voice small and tiny hands gripping the rich fabric of his robe nervously. “What about Misters Borgin and Malfoy? Draco is a blind bat when it comes to anything other than Quidditch and Seeking or finding a victim to bully, I’m sure he can’t see past his nose but-“

“You are rambling,” Lestrange told him gently, placing his hands on Harry’s shoulders when the boy blinked at him. They both ignored the sullen Tom who stood awkwardly to the side watching their interaction.

“I admit I pride myself in being more observant than any of them. But you do know that spying on them is dangerous, right? If you die, I will be forced to listen to my cousin-in-law bitch for a long time.”

“I ended up there as an accident,” Potter replied reluctantly, looking away from the man. His eyes caught the sight of Tom and he frowned. “And maybe I stayed a little while longer when I saw Lucius Malfoy coming. You know, with dad conducting another raid, I thought it’d be good if I knew where they keep their Dark items…”

Tom perked up at that. Why was Potter Sr. conducting those raids? He had heard about some prejudice against Dark purebloods but to go so far as to actually search their houses…

Last year no one had whined about it, so it was safe to presume last year such things hadn’t happened. So, something must have triggered it this summer, and Tom was eager to discover what exactly.

“You should have asked. Lucius and I have been on bad terms lately. He needs to be reminded of who exactly rules the ball in the Ministry, and that’s the Black family, to which my dear Bella belongs.”

The couple was deep into their conversation and Tom knew he could easily slip away from this man who somehow put him out. But… did he want to? Tom knew he wouldn’t get many opportunities to talk to Potter one on one once they were in Hogwarts; Tom had his own agendas and the other boy was always surrounded by people.

Just when he made up his mind, Tom felt the chilling gaze of the man on him. Never one to back down from a challenge, he met it with his chin up, which elicit a tiny quirk of lips from the man.

“And who is this? I don’t believe I ever saw him.” Lestrange tilted his head in Tom’s direction but his eyes rested on Harry. “If you don’t know him, I will be free to punish him for eavesdropping. While you had half a decent reason, he had none.”

Harry pursed his lip and threw a lost glance at Tom, who was mulling over the pros and cons of running away from an obviously dangerous wizard’s hexes and curses.

He didn’t expect Potter to cover for him.

Unexpectedly, the thought hurt more than he cared to admit.

“Umm… He… is my friend. From Hogwarts.”

The words forced Tom’s eyes to enlarge and become as wide as saucers. He quickly schooled his features into socially accepted by purebloods blankness before the man would notice his astounded look and realize they weren’t friends at all.

 _‘Allies,’_ Tom corrected inside his mind, the idea of not having any connection to Potter at all foreign to him. _‘When he forgets about this stupid Longbottom incident, we’ll be allies again. I don’t need friends but he can be useful to me. Especially with such influential friends and parents.’_

“Hn. I’ll pretend I believe you,” Lestrange drawled, looking Tom up and down. Seemingly satisfied with what he was seeing, he leaned in to whisper something in Potter’s ear. The words made blush appear on the raven-haired boy’s pale cheeks and he looked at the man up indignantly.

Lestrange straightened out and smoothed out the nonexistent wrinkles on his impeccable robes, nodded to Tom and Potter, and, with sparse words of goodbye, left them to stand in the middle of the street.

The thugs who had been trailing after the pair of boys when they had exited the shop, were now nowhere to be seen. The aristocratic man had most likely threw them off and changed their mind about robbing them.

Tom shook his head slightly and looked at Potter, who was watching the disappearing figure of Lestrange.

“Who was it?” Tom asked, knowing the answer but wanting to hear who the man was in relation to Harry.

“The husband of my godfather’s cousin,” Potter replied curtly, bobbing his head and staring at Tom.

They stood like this for a few moments, Tom relaxed and Potter’s shoulders tense, until the black-haired boy let out a long breath and started walking towards Diagon Alley. Tom wanted to follow him but was stopped by a hand impeding his movement.

“Don’t follow me, Riddle.” Potter huffed, exasperated. “When I said we were friends, I did it only to throw Uncle Rodolphus off your back. His curses are quite nasty and can cause even more gossip about their family – not that they care, mind you – but it doesn’t mean we are actually friends.”

“Is it just-“

“Look, Riddle, you are a sick tosser who enjoys manipulating others.” Potter’s eyes flashed with shock at having said that, but it soon morphed into determination as he blathered on. “Generally, it doesn’t bother be. On the contrary, it makes me awed. Unless it is my _friends_ you use your false charms on. And I had my ears flooded with the stories about you from Ron and Nev. Now, hush. I don’t want to see you until Hogwarts.”

He picked up his pace and strode along the twisting alley, set on leaving it as soon as possible.

For a second, Tom stood there, claws of unidentifiable hurt gripping his heart. After he had heard what Potter really thought about him.

Then, a sudden surge of anger engulfed him, and his eyes blazed with fire.

A dodgy passer-by wondered if it was his imagination or were they really red. Not willing to find out, he scurried down the lane to his destination.

_‘Ally or not, no one can order me around.’_

Tom’s pace accelerated and his angry footsteps reached Potter in a few long strides. At the sound of them against the pavement, Potter whipped his head around and watched Tom with barely concealed irritation.

“I told you not to bother me!” he snapped as they escaped the alley and slowed down, both walking towards Florish and Blotts, which was usually the first stop of those purchasing school supplies.

“If you haven’t noticed, I need my textbooks too,” Tom replied coolly, feeling pleased at the embarrassed blush Potter sported. “Besides, the exit was the only one. It’s not like you own the place.”

“Whatever you say, Riddle.” Potter rolled his eyes and set his jaw mulishly.

Their walk was surprisingly comfortable, the silence not taxing at all. Eventually, they exchanged a few words, Potter’s replies being succinct but lacking any real venom, and parted their ways; Potter meeting the Weasleys and Tom going to Ollivander to ask some clues on how to erase the Trace.

That day, Tom found out something important about Potter, something that was a constant in the younger boy’s character.

Potter really knew how to hold onto grudges.

XXX

“Tom! Dear, you can’t imagine how much I’ve missed you!”

Tom felt almost suffocated by the hugs the girls had showered him with. To his horror, it wasn’t the girls only; Michael Corner and Anthony Goldstein – the only Hufflepuff among them – sitting in his compartment had embraced him, too, not to mention countless manly claps on his now sore shoulder.

He really didn’t wish to be his body part.

The pinching on his cheeks by the mothers/aunts/grandmothers of his associates had been a pain in the arse, and Tom felt as if he would have a permanent blush imprinted on them.

Returning to Hogwarts was both relieving and annoying.

It was great to return to the place that felt like home, but all those detestable squeals of delight at the sight of him, while showing the respect and admiration his minions had for him, grated on his nerves and he longed for Potter’s quiet companionship that he couldn’t contain because of the other’s misguided notions of friendship.

“Careful, Megan. Our Tom is so frail he will snap from the pressure,” Terry Boot attempted to joke, for which he got smacked by Mandy Brocklehurst and got skewered by Megan Jones’s heated glare, the strength of which made Corner flinch.

 _‘It doesn’t hold a candle to mine though,’_ Tom thought smugly, seeing as Boot didn’t hunch in on himself and cower like some children he had experimented on did.

“Don’t you dare call me fat!” Jones screamed into Boot’s flabbergasted face and ran out of Tom’s compartment to her own.

The Ravenclaw blinked rapidly a few times before settling his gaze on Tom.

“Umm… Did I say something wrong?” he asked stupidly, for what he got hit by Brocklehurst again.

_‘You have freed me from the duty of listening to her useless chatter. It’s good when servants can understand their master’s wishes without words.’_

“Idiot!” The only girl in the compartment hissed into Boot’s ear before bending to fetch the book that had fallen to the floor when she had smacked her friend. “You just implied she’s stronger than Tom.”

“So what? It’s true!”

“Even if it is, you could have lied! When a girl is stronger than a guy, it’s wrong.”

Boot clearly wanted to add something but shut up with resignation at the girl’s steely glance. He mumbled something unintelligible and flipped one of the books lying on the seat open, flicking through the pages in annoyed motions.

Tom enjoyed the silence, thanking whatever deities existed that he had chosen to sit with Ravenclaws. Their lot were much quieter and cooler, and preferred books more than anything.

Slytherin students all mingled with the upperclassmen, each of them having a vast network of acquaintances, friends, or relatives throughout different years.

Gryffindors were wary of Slytherins, Tom included for the most part, and he knew he wouldn’t get any peace with them. Hufflepuffs were even worse, which had left him with the Ravenclaw option, not that Tom really minded.

“Hey.” Someone had to break the blissful silence, didn’t they? “Did you hear about that cat fight between Arthur Weasley and Lucius Malfoy?” Goldstein asked hesitantly with small blush adorning his cheeks at the irritated looks everyone sent him.

“Yeah, yeah, and Malfoy got a black eye the size of a fist. Old news, Goldstein. The _Prophet_ was all over it for a week,” Brocklehurst said, tucking a lock of black hair behind her ear in irritation.

Tom didn’t know it; he hadn’t had the money to subscribe to the newspaper, which left him completely disconnected from the Wizarding World for summer.

He hated it. One more problem him being a muggleborn caused.

“You remember it, Tom?”

“Of course, although I admit that I don’t remember the reasons why the fight broke out were,” Tom lied, smiling sweetly at Corner and not showing his ignorance.

“Malfoy insulted Weasley, and the sod hit him in the face. Nothing much, nothing new.” Corner shrugged unconcernedly.

“Pity that they had to spoil Professor Lockhart’s-“

“Professor Lockhart? Do we have a bloke called that?”

“Our new DADA teacher, you dumbass! Honestly, didn’t you read the textbook list?”

“Nah. Mother bought everything. I just tagged along to drool at Nimbus 2001,” Goldstein said, grinning widely.

“Can you describe him?” Tom interrupted what would have been another long, monotone Quidditch talk. “I saw the list but never the man himself.”

“An utter dunce.”

“Super gorgeous!”

Tom shifted his gaze from Corner to the flushed Brocklehurst, who was staring down on the book on her lap without really reading it.

“He’s got the Order of Merlin,” she mumbled in the man’s defense. “And has achieved a lot. A celebrity, Lockhart is. We should be proud he will be teaching us.”

The boys in the compartment disagreed with her yet no one voiced their point of view as everyone was more eager to return to their own devices – going over the material in hopes of memorizing it all.

Tom was glad the talk about Diagon Alley and the happenings there was over; he had gone to Ollivander but the man disappointed him saying he was bound by the Ministerial Vow to never reveal anything about the Trace.

He did mention a Gregorovitch though, a Bulgarian wand-maker, but Tom didn’t really have money to travel.

 _‘For now,’_ he promised silently, looking away from the Charms textbook and out of the window. _‘I guess some more help with homework and some more blackmail material, and I won’t be so filthy poor anymore.’_

The thought kept him entertained until the very arrival to Hogwarts.

XXX

The Great Hall was as great as ever, with stars lining the artificial sky and plates and goblets shine in the glimmer of bright light from the candelabras with inserted candles on the tables and gigantic chandeliers dangling from the ceiling.

Tom didn’t pay much attention to the Sorting; he was hungry and worried that someone could hear the rumbling of his stomach over the loud clapping and cheering of students and teachers alike.

When the last student in the line got into Gryffindor, Tom let out a breath of relief. He wasn’t going to die of hunger!

Dumbledore rose from his seat and smiled that annoying, beaming smile of his that Tom detested.

“Dear students! I’m happy to welcome you again this year. I hope you gained some knowledge last year and, if not… Well, you have a year left to refill your heads. Now, I hope you enjoy your meal”

As if his words were a command, food started to appear on the golden dishes, ranging from light salads and cheese plates to all kinds of exotic foods.

Tom took his fork and began to fill his plate with some cherry tomatoes – both their taste and colour were lovely to him – and tender meat, all the while observing this weirdo Lockhart, a strange teacher whom Tom couldn’t see from his position, or his classmates alternatively.

The talk going on at the table was mostly easy, his housemates sharing their experiences of Paris, Nice, Milan, Bristol, Berlin, New York, and whatever cities or countries they ended up in. It was a blatant power play, each of them bragging about the influence of their families and their wealth.

Tom didn’t have much to add, so he preferred to watch on and slowly sip the pumpkin juice he hadn’t tasted for the whole summer.

Dumbledore rose, silencing them all effectively, and recited the rules the students were bound to follow, Filch glaring nastily at them all with Mrs. Norris in his arms.

“And now,” Dumbledore said cheerfully, gesturing at the hidden professor, “I want you to welcome James Potter, who will be teaching in the Duelling Club this year!”

The man rose and turned fully to the audience, his grin bright and making the girls in the Hall swoon. He wasved his hand cheerfully, and Tom couldn’t help but notice the bitter twist of lips Snape had sent the man.

James Potter resembled his son a lot but they weren’t completely alike. Tom could see a myriad of very small differences that together made the faces of the son and the father vary a lot. Still, the pitch black hair, short and generally small stature, and this irrefutable charm were definitely something both of them shared.

When the man sat down again, the babble increased in loudness, and Tom could see Harry’s exasperation at being asked questions about his father from all sides.

 _‘I won’t pity him,’_ Tom thought stubbornly, hiding the vindictive smirk into his goblet. _‘I would have diverted their attention but after the disregard he showed me in Diagon Alley… Nah.’_

It was with immense satisfaction that Tom watched how Potter almost snapped at the seventh-year girl trying to ask him if his father was interesting in someone young being his secretary.

“Now, I think some rest is what we need,” Dumbledore once again returned the silence. “Off to bed!”

Everyone flocked to their house’s prefects and followed them to the common rooms. Many of the students were tired and sleepy after the long ride and the huge meal.

When Tom entered their dorm room and dropped on his bed in exhaustion, his last thought was that he was finally home.

 


	7. Chapter 7. To Seek the Truth.

**Chapter 7. To Seek the Truth.**

Lockhart was an idiot. No other way about it.

All Tom’s illusions about getting a decent teacher that year were quickly dispersed after the first lesson. The man didn’t even know how to get rid of Cornish pixies, for Merlin’s sake!

Granted, no one else among his classmates did either, but Tom knew, and had gotten them off his back with a simple spell he had read in the book during the summer. Needless to say it only escalated his authority amongst the second-years.

Although he _had_ waited before a few of them hang Longbottom by his robes to a shiny chandelier. The sight of the dangling lump of a boy had warmed Tom’s nonexistent heart.

All small joys aside, it seemed like Malfoy was going to have his father throw out another teacher this year.

“I never thought I’d get better marks than our local prodigy Tom Riddle,” a voice sniped from somewhere above.

Tom held back an irritated sigh and covertly tucked his book on wards somewhere in between his DADA textbooks so that the girl wouldn’t wonder as to why he had them and/or needed them right at the moment. It was a bit too early to learn either Ancient Runes or Arythmancy at their age, after all.

“Daphne, don’t you have to console Tracey after her grandmother’s passing this summer?” Tom shifted in his seat to get a better view on the girl he had come to deem a useful acquaintance of a moderately bothersome level.

The blonde shrugged and her azure eyes clouded a bit as she plopped down on the armchair next to his with as much decorum as a girl of her standing could possibly have, surrounded by the people she was mostly acquainted with.

“Well… After she threw that pillow at me, I’m more than a bit unmotivated to go comfort her. Can you _imagine_? Can you _see_ my hair now? It’s awful! And to get the hairbrush, I need to pass her bed, and who knows what this hysterical bitch will do.”

Huffing indignantly, Greengrass smoothed her shiny thick mane with her hand and looked at Tom, expectation shining through her every move.

 _‘Does she want me to… urgh… comfort her or something?’_ Tom thought in mortification and mild disgust.

He was _never_ going to comfort _any_ people, lest the situation was dire and the person consoled was of very high standing. Greengrass, while not the worst of his classmates, wasn’t worth the trouble and all the awkwardness Tom would undoubtedly experience.

“Besides, back to the topic.”

Tom turned his attention to the girl and raised his eyebrow, waiting for her to elaborate but feeling wary about what she would tell him. Greengrass was unpredictable, and he hoped to all deities available that it wasn’t going to be another talk on the admirable traits in Gilderoy Lockhart.

“I can’t fathom why your DADA marks have descended.”

Tom returned to doing his homework, glaring at the pages he flipped through and tuning the annoying voice out.

He knew oh so well where this was going.

“Professor Lockhart is such a great man, isn’t learning his biography is the best thing ever and very entertaining? He has achieved so much-“

_‘One of the ways to get rid of Cornish pixies is to gift them with bits of finery, especially silk ribbons or offcuts of lace. If you are a Christian muggleborn, you could show them an iron cross, but that’s-‘_

“-and didn’t you notice the way his teeth _gleam_? Honestly, Tom, for someone so smart you are actually a bit lacking when it comes to seeing people’s real worth. Professor is-“

_‘-because of the ambient magic some muggle priests with just a tint of magical powers in them transfer to the sanctified objects, not because of some ‘godly powers’ muggles believe crosses to have.’_

“-he doesn’t deserve such disdain from your part, and you are very important to me, but he is so dreamy and beautiful and nice and his smile is the most gorgeous thing ever-“

Tom wanted to snap at the blabbering idiot, whose useless prattle was getting on his nerves and distracting him from the very interesting piece about muggles who did have some semblance of magical powers inside of them waiting to be awakened.

Alas, even in Slytherin, where everyone could more or less guess what he was doing with the members of the other Houses, he had to hide his real character, goals, and aspirations.

“Greengrass, give the poor guy a break.”

Tom recognized the voice and, for once, was quite happy to hear it.

“Again, why are you here, Zabini?” the blonde spat out, placing her legs on the sofa opposite of hers so as to not give the approaching Zabini and Nott anywhere to sit.

“Bored.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Nott said and grinned cheerfully, wrapping his fingers around Greengrass’s ankles and gently moving them to the elaborate green carpet. He proceeded to drop into the sofa, Zabini following suit. “He just figured that talking to Riddle would be more fun than getting one upped by me in Exploding Snap eight times in a row.”

“Seven. Don’t exaggerate,” the dark-skinned boy sneered, observing Tom’s pile of books.

“Well, seven. Doesn’t change the fact that you are a sore loser.”

“You tire me out.” Greengrass huffed and placed her hands on her hips. “Why can’t you boys be more… mature? Like me.”

 _‘Sure, storming out of the room when your friend is recovering after the loss of a family member is mature,’_ Tom thought snidely, putting all his efforts into keeping his face void of emotions and eyes trained on the lines of the book.

Were those quasi-magical muggles connected to squibs in some way? Or just some mudbloods whose powers weren’t awakened enough to reach the mark of a full wizard or witch?

Tom made another mental note to himself – he had done this a lot ever since coming to Hogwarts – and kept on reading.

“I won’t even deem it with a comment.” Nott snorted into his fist and smirked.

Correction. _Tried_ to keep on reading.

“What did you say, again? Theo, dear, do you remember our childhood? I still have photos of that New Year when-“

“Ouch, bugger! Don’t say it, not here!” Nott glanced nervously at Tom, who had perked up at the prospect of learning something potentially embarrassing about him, and Zabini, whose eyes were twinkling in anticipation.

“See? Sometimes you act more foolishly than Weasley.”

“Which one?”

“Does it matter?”

“Hn… Not really. By the way, have you heard about the incident on the Quidditch pitch today?” Zabini asked excitedly, eager to share a piece of gossip.

“What happened?”

“Don’t tell me that _you_ of all people haven’t heard anything about it. I might find your information-digging skills getting rusty, Riddle.”

“Confusing snippets of conversations is all I’ve got. Everyone is obviously so excited; they can’t keep their entertainment in check. And the Houses other than ours are all spouting some Slytherin-is-evil nonsense again and pity ‘poor Ronnie’.”

“It’s not like they’ll pit up against _you_ , though.” Nott wriggled in the couch and curled up his lip, sparks of jealousy cracking through his usually tranquil attitude.

“Careful, Nott. I can feel your envy in the air,” Tom cut off the starting rant, flipping through the pages with a bored expression on his handsome face.

The remark brought a heavy sneer on Nott’s face, which was soaked in bitter resentment. However he wanted to deny it, ever since their break-up with Moon the ordinarily peaceful boy picked up on Tom a lot, for unclear and often miniscule reasons.

The day before, the twerp even had had the nerve to declare Tom a teacher’s pet and a Granger-wannabe!

It had made Tom only scoff at the stupidity of the idea that he could even somewhat wish for a life of a lonely, awkward, and bossy know-it-all with no manners whatsoever. Inwardly, however, he had promised himself to get revenge on the other boy.

He fully planned on making the Notts succumb to his reign one day, thus it wouldn’t do for a future leader of the Dark – and the world in general, of course – to allow insults to his person go unpunished.

“Settle your issues in the dorm, boys,” Greengrass snapped, her gaze directed more at Nott rather than Tom, the crush on whom hadn’t withered that much yet. “I want to gossip!”

“I wonder what your parents would say if they knew how you behave around our housemates.” Blaise burst out laughing, throwing his head back uproariously.

Malfoy and his goons, who had been distracted from their game of wizarding chess – played by lone Malfoy, considering how neither Crabbe nor Goyle could make a single rational move without clear directions – by the noise and were now listening in, all had amused expressions on their faces as well.

“What? It’s not like _you_ don’t enjoy it, Blaise.” The girl rolled her eyes and huffed, grabbing a goblet of fresh juice from the table. Tom watched her drink warily, afraid the goblet would slip out of her fingers, crash, and splash the orange substance onto the parchments filled with careful writing and valuable books.

“True.” The dark-skinned boy smirked widely, not at all ashamed at the fact. “But you must be the only one here not afraid of admitting it.”

“So?” Tom cut in once again, afraid they would start to recount their stories of the opportune and not-so-opportune moments they traded rumours and the reactions of other people at that. “What did Malfoy do again?”

The blond, who was still standing over Nott with his hand placed on the sofa above the boy’s head, grimaced at Tom and shot him a fulminating glower, the force of which was too weak to intimidate Tom.

“Everyone here knows how his father bribed the teams so he could get onto the team?” Zabini inquired cheerfully, leaning backwards to get more comfortable. Everyone around gave an affirmative sound or nodded eagerly.

“I did _not!_ It was on-“ Malfoy protested loudly, spittle flying out of his mouth and landing on Nott’s hair. Tom winced in disgust.

“Like I would believe your father suddenly decided to gift our team with brand new, ostentatious brooms.” Tom snorted disparagingly and stretched his lips in a mocking smirk as he watched the blond pale and look uncomfortable. “Just when his son was about to _fail_ the try outs. Awfully convenient, that.”

“Especially considering he hasn’t been interested in Quidditch for years and couldn’t care less about our team’s progress,” Greengrass added, gleeful at Malfoy’s stutters and unhealthily pale face, which was only enhanced by the blonde hair and light casual robes.

“Believe what you want,” he finally drawled haughtily, regaining his usual arrogant behaviour. He threw his chin upwards and was about to leave, when a thought pierced him. “Besides, you can’t fault what I have done to Weasely. The sod deserved it for being so bloody irritating.”

Zabini guffawed at the reminder and bent over, clutching his stomach as he laughed hard. Malfoy, abandoning his self-important attitude, and Nott both joined him, tears of mirth in their eyes.

Tom leaned in; he had heard about the incident but what exactly was done to Weasley – _Morgana, why wasn’t it Longbottom?_ – was never mentioned, others just closing their eyes remorsefully and shaking their heads.

“From what I’ve heard, he is still in the hospital wing, throwing up slugs,” Greengrass remarked merrily. She had had enough of the story, and wasn’t such a Weasley-hater as many other Slytherins, so the incident didn’t bring that much enjoyment as it did to others.

“Eww!”

“Gross! Well, nothing less for a Weasley, I suppose…”

“You could omit the details, Daphne,” Parkinson, who had joined their rather loud group, stated with disdain. Greengrass merely shrugged and took one of the lying around books to glance at it in boredom before shutting it close. “And why are we discussing it? But I agree that my Drakey was magnificent there, so handsome, so-“

Malfoy paled and traded looks with Tom, forgetting about their mutual dislike and wanting someone to help him out of this abysmal chore – being a ‘boyfriend’ of Parkinson’s.

 _‘Now, whom did you call a ‘filthy mudblood not worth the dirt underneath my shoes’ the other day?’_ Tom thought vindictively, marginally shaking his head, which drew a betrayed scowl from Malfoy.

_‘Really, does the twat think we are friends or something?’_

“With every word you spout, I feel my intelligence dropping,” Greengrass muttered, locking her gaze with Parkinson’s and raising a derisive eyebrow. The pug-like girl’s face went an angry red, its ugly splotches doing nothing to beautify her features.

“I- I…”

“Can’t even come up with a comeback? How unbecoming.” With this final hit to Parkinson’s pride, the blonde turned away to chatter brightly with Zabini, asking him for the details and maybe some other juicy rumours flying around the school.

Tom didn’t feel anything as the black-haired girl’s face scrunched up at the collective betrayal of her ‘darling Drakey’ who didn’t bother standing up for her, opting to uncomfortably look away and twist his fingers, and the other Slytherins who liked her decisively less than the blonde.

As his housemates keenly engaged in a blabber, Tom’s mind drifted away from the incident – it wasn’t that interesting, he had thought something more entertaining had happened, and the fact that one of his year mates was currently vomiting slugs didn’t seem like a big deal.

More importantly, his mind was on how he could use this rift between Parkinson and Greengrass.

The Slytherin girls were all very different, and, from what he had heard, their room sometimes truly resembled a snake pit.

While Greengrass poised as a dainty flower amongst tough Slytherin guys before other Houses, inside of the protective walls of their common room she had quite a temper and behaved almost the complete opposite of what a female of her standing was supposed to behave.

True, she loved gossip – a trait she shared with Zabini and some older Slytherins, who had their own network of gaining information – and other girly stuff Tom didn’t want to step a foot in, she was often crude in her wording and quick to insult those she didn’t like.

Parkinson was usually the target of her bad mood and slurs and verbal abuse, not to count the times the blonde actually hexed her (Tom had personally seen her talent in Charms, so he clearly imagined the extent of her curses and jinxes).

The Parkinsons were one step higher than the Greengrasses, but their only daughter didn’t astound anyone with either her smarts or her beauty, so the family mostly ignored whatever pleas for help she could have sent in her letters.

_‘Serves her right. Not to mention that I can use a bit of acting and coerce her into being ‘friends’ with me. And then a library of Dark Purebloods would be in my hands…’_

The images of unraveling plans dissipated when Tom caught sight of Millicent Bulstrode, who was studiously ignoring everyone around, too entrenched in a book on Magical History in front of her.

While she was good at almost everything, her exceptional skills lay in History and research. Her notes were extremely elaborate and filled with facts not mentioned in their textbooks. If not for Tom’s pride, he would have enjoyed borrowing them.

Tracey Davis, the last Slytherin girl in their year, did exactly that, cajoling and whining to the irritated Bulstorde to let her borrow the notes.

She wasn’t as bad as Parkinson, but her screeches aggravated Tom no less than the other girl’s.

 _‘Just why are theikr voices so high-pitched? If only I could lay a law that forbid shrieking, I’d die a happy man… No, wait, I don’t want to die at all!’_ Tom thought frantically, the idea of dying before completing everything he had set out to do scary in his mind. _‘I should really snap Potter out of whatever grudge he is in and drag him to the library next time I see him.’_

For incomprehensible reasons, Tom trusted Potter a bit while he couldn’t trust any other person like Granger or Bulstrode – he could thoroughly charm either if he wanted to – or any Ravenclaw. The idea didn’t settle well with him, although he was aware of bushy-haired mudblood’s legendary research skills.

_‘Potter should have seen this coming.’_

“Tom, want some juice with the cookies my mother has sent me?”

With a satisfied and elegant nod, Tom stretched out his hand to accept the offered treats and munched on his cookie contently, his mind already drifting on the Trace and ways to charm Parkinson and whatever dark plots the boy could think of.

It was no use thinking of Potter when other, more essential things, needed his attention all around.

XXX

It turned out that Tom didn’t have much time to spare all the weeks up to Halloween.

Lockhart was making such a nuisance out of himself that his stupidity and illogical actions were hard to ignore anymore. Moreover, he had taken to follow Tom everywhere and give advice on how to be a celebrity and how to smile – he had actually forced Tom to smile, in front of his snickering classmates, no less! – and all this crap.

Someone had told the man about Tom’s numerous accomplishment and mentioned his desire to someday enter political circles and be a socialite.

Tom was going to _strangle_ the bastard when he would find just who it was.

Herbology hated him as always, and while it was still easy to keep up, Tom knew he would need to find either a tutor among the Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs – his House didn’t appreciate weakness; if someone ever got tutored it was either by Ravenclaws or in their homes.

The thought left him angry at himself for his inability, and at Longbottom for being so damn good with the hated subject.

The only thing that consoled him was that old cat McGonagall was smitten with him and invited him every week to her office for a cup of tea with brownies and an admittedly entertaining talk about the theory of Transfiguration.

Tom knew that with enough careful manipulating, he could convince the woman into telling him where the entrance to Gryffindor common room was. She thought of him as a charming and polite boy who couldn’t do any bad, and trusted him implicitly, thus wouldn’t mind disclosing this secret to him.

And then… Well, if Longbottom had deemed Malfoy’s bullying painful and humiliating, it wouldn’t hold a candle to Tom’s sweet revenge.

Not to mention that Tom’s housemates would be willing to give a lot for this information…

 _‘Sometimes, I can’t believe myself,’_ Tom thought smugly as he strode through the corridors with bitching Davis, Greengrass, and Zabini, and a reluctant Nott, following him hurriedly.

He pushed the humongous doors of the Great Hall and didn’t bat an eyelash at the unusual gathering of people. It seemed like holidays were the only times everyone was present, not oversleeping or elsewhere for once.

The decorations were as enthralling as the previous year, and Tom knew he should pay more attention to the engaging dance of skeletons or the fluttering pitch black bats or the sheer mirth in the happy atmosphere all around him but…

His eyes drifted slowly to the Ravenclaw table, hoping to catch the emerald gaze of one person he liked most in this too cheery place.

Alas, like with the other times they crossed ways, Potter didn’t even glance in his direction.

The knowledge was strangely discomfiting.

Potter, the twat, didn’t notice Tom’s emotional upheaval as the black-haired boy chattered brightly with a few of his fellow housemates. Sometimes, he would throw what seemed to be a fully remark, and people around him laughed and pointed at something, and Potter himself would grin shyly and blush a bit, as if unused to the attention he kept receiving.

While Tom was settling at the table, surrounded by the cheerful Slytherins, the realization of what exactly made Potter so valuable hit him like a ton of bricks in the head.

Harry Potter was always surrounded by people. He drew them, no matter their age, sex, or character, and they became entranced with him, with his humble attitude, shyness, and at the same time remarkable intelligence.

Gryffindors adored him, mostly because of his father’s occupation. Those annoying Brown and Patil chits were always swooning whenever he passed by, and it wasn’t a secret that Potter’s family was very friendly with the Weasleys and the Longbottoms.

Hufflepuffs liked Potter almost as much as they liked Tom. However, while Tom’s charms were all an act, Potter fascinated them naturally with his sweet disposition, lack of prejudice against their House, and helpfulness.

Among the Ravenclaws, Potter was considered one of the best students, ranking third or fourth in most subjects. He was usually worse than Tom and know-it-all Granger and mostly had the same marks as another Ravenclaw boy, Terry Boot – a silent, unobtrusive brunet who usually occupied himself with reading or taking notes from one of the huge tomes he carried around.

Even Slytherins usually didn’t mind Potter, although some of them, like Malfoy, disliked him because of his father.

All things considered, Tom felt reluctantly impressed about the endearing Ravenclaw boy.

Their eyes locked across the Great Hall, and Tom saw the way Potter’s hand paused when the boy moved it to grab a piece of bread. Something akin to nostalgia rushed through his emerald eyes before the Ravenclaw puffed out his lip mutinously and bit down on his food, turning his attention to some noisy blithering moron.

“What’s wrong, Tom?” Greengrass nudged him under the table. She hesitated before adding, “You are not a cheery chap anyway, but today you are too silent even for yourself.”

“Nothing,” Tom said, stretching his lips into a forceful smile and ignoring the frisson of disappointment that ran through him at the same situation he had been faced with since the start of the year. “Just thinking about the _Prophet_ ’s contents this morning.”

“It was awful,” Greengrass said gravely and shook her head in remorse. “What those blasted beasts did to that family…”

“Whatcha talking about?” Zabini interposed, tilting his head to a side and popping a small sweet in his mouth as he looked at the expectantly.

“The article in the _Prophet_ this morning,” Tom repeated and shrugged. “Werewolves. Carnage.”

“Oh.”

“Terrible,” Malfoy cut in. “They say a young couple and their newborn were eaten to the point where only a smattering of bones was left, and a spooky message written in blood on the front wall, just over the door.”

 _‘I wonder how they managed to levitate the blood so neatly it didn’t spill, and the letters were clear._ ’ Tom didn’t voice his thoughts, observing hoe Parkinson and Davis were ready to faint at the mere remembrance of the picture in the newspaper.

“Charming. Very gothic. Who knew werewolves are lovers of classic horrors?”

“ _Blaise!_ Don’t you dare joke about death!” Greengrass snapped, appalled to the core, and slapped the dark-skinned boy on his head painfully.

“Who was the leader of the pack, by the way?” Nott rushed to say, in fear of a fight breaking out and attracting attention from the other Houses.

“Greyback, I think his name was.”

“Dreadful. If only my father knew-“

“Isn’t it the same guy who was almost carted off to Azkaban for maiming a few families and turning their children into werewolves and raping them?” Zabini suddenly exclaimed, his exclamation drawing some odd looks from the neughbouring Ravenclaw table and the older years. “The one who got out because Draco’s father bribed the judge.”

Malfoy paled before glaring at his snickering classmates. Even Crabbe and Goyle looked amused.

“I heard those attacks were the reason the Duelling Club was established,” Davis whispered conspiratorially, glancing fleetingly at the Head Table.

“Well, it’s not like this is the first attack of his pack,” Nott stated, frowning. “They have been randomly happening throughout the last year, just never so cruel or containing such a direct message to the Aurors. No one paid much attention to them; all the victims lived more or less near the forest, and their bites were obviously made by wolves or some similar Dark creature.”

“It does make sense if you are too lazy to look into the matter thoroughly,” Tom agreed snidely and smirked. “They didn’t bother with investigating, wrote it off as a work of forest creatures, and happily put the case on the shelf.”

“Yay for our law enforcement system.” Zabini mock-saluted with his empty goblet.

“If only Auror Potter were there…”

And just as they all turned to look at the man, a loud _smack_ resounded through the Hall, halting everyone’s movements as students stopped whatever they were doing to stare at the teachers’ table.

Severus Snape was panting hard, his greasy hair shadowing his face and making it impossible to read the expression on it. His hands were tightly clutching the smirking James Potter’s neck, fingers digging painfully into the skin, as he snarled, “Fuck you, Potter.”

The hushed speculations and shocked mutterings at the unusual usage of profanity coming out of their Potions Professor’s mouth, spread out like a wildfire. Tom saw some of the Gryffindors stand up to defend their idol, and a few of them shouted in rage and demanded for Snape to let the shorter man go.

“The hell-“ Nott began before he got interrupted.

“Let him go, you bloody bat!” Ron Weasley bellowed, his freckled clouded by the red flush. In a second, his wand was in his large hands and pointed at the motionless figures.

Neither Snape nor James Potter deigned him with a glance.

“Umm… Ron,” Finnigan clenched the redhead’s shoulder nervously. “We are all worried for Professor Potter but-“

“It’s my best friend’s father the greasy bastard is trying to kill!”

“Detention, Mr. Weasley. And fifty points from Gryffindor for the inability to keep your mouth shut,” Snape drawled silkily, finally releasing Potter Senior and straightening his robes. He took a few steps back to observe his still gasping for air enemy with such hatred that even Tom felt a bit frightened.

At the lost points, the entire lion House roared.

“Unfair!”

“Who gave you the rights-“

“You can’t, Professor-“

“Go to your bloody dungeons-“

“SILENCE!” Dumbledore’s magically magnified voice made everyone clutch their heads at the force of it. The man was standing, enraged and oddly imperious with his tallness and stern face.

“It seems like the feast is finished anyway. I ask the prefects to escort everyone to their dorm rooms.”

He sat down, and his tone and overall tense stance didn’t encourage anyone to speak. Even the still red-faced Weasley was fuming in silence, not verbalizing whatever foolishness he was about to spout. The other Gryffindors all grumbled, not bothered by the fact that James Potter himself looked quite smug if anything, and left the Great Hall along with the members of the other Houses.

“And I will have a few words with you, too, James, Severus,” Dumbledore said gravely, directing his disapproving words to the two men in front of him.

“I would have expected it from James, but you, Severus, should have known better.” McGonagall shook her head disdainfully.

“Not my fault, Minerva. You know what he said.”

“Yes, but- All right, I see your point.”

“Doesn’t make your reaction right, though,” Pomona Sprout argued, her usual friendliness almost gone.

“You have disturbed not only our own meal, but students’, too.”

James Potter, who had regained his bearings and stopped clutching his now bruised neck, stepped forward to say something unfortunate but Tom couldn’t hear anymore.

“Riddle?” Marcus Flint urged. “Are you going or do we leave you here?”

“If you leave me, I will probably be too tired to do my homework.”

Which he had already done but, well, it’s not like he had to report.

“And we have this wonderful Potions quiz tomorrow, where a lot of points could be lost if I were to have a headache or something.”

Despite his words, Tom sauntered after the prefect, knowing he could later ask Zabini or Greengrass whether they knew anything. It could also be another good reason to remind Potter of his existence.

Remembering the emerald-eyed boy urged Tom to turn his head to the sides, looking for him.

Tom had never thought a person could literally _reek_ of disappointed, could look heartbroken and weary and as if the weight of the whole world was on their shoulders all at the same time.

He saw the disillusionment in Potter’s eyes and vowed to never cause this expression on the boy’s face himself.

 

 


	8. Silent Force

_ November, 4th. _

Finally, the Potions lesson on the fourth of November came round and Tom would have been giddy with anticipation had it not made him feel so bloody undignified.

Normally, he wouldn’t give the lesson any mind – Snape was a bastard who sang praises to Malfoy and barely tolerated other students, and Tom would be forced to tolerate all those blown up cauldrons and wails at the unfairness of their professor, and glare at Potter who _still_ didn’t spare him a glance…

Yet today was an exception.

Tom watched from the corner of his eye as a group of silent and strict-looking Ravenclaws entered the classroom. Potter was there, of course, and the black school robes emphasised the unusual chalky paleness of his face.

The Ravenclaw dragged his feet to one of the cauldrons, and this time he sat as far away from the point Snape would usually stand in as possible. He paired up with Terry Boot today. Both boys were flipping through the pages of their textbook, just like the other ravens did, in fear of Snape rounding on them again.

Admittedly, the man usually preferred to torment Potter, but there were always exceptions.

Today, however, Tom was sure that the green-eyed boy would be the one suffering the most. After all, Ravenclaws hadn’t had a lesson with Snape since the man’s outburst in the Great Hall on Halloween.

The bell rang. Tom, disregarding Greengrass’s usual jabber, crossed his legs and looked intently at the doors, ready to enjoy the show.

Not a second passed, and their professor marched in. His robes were billowing around him in that ordinary bat-like fashion of his, and his coil black eyes were murderous when he threw a glower at Potter, who was trying to act as inconspicuous as possible.

“I am delighted to announce that today we will be working on Burn-Healing Paste.” Snape’s eyes glowed maliciously at the poorly suppressed sighs and groans from the student body.

The substance would have to be thick, which meant they had to stir it very carefully and even a second long delay could make the potion go awry. The paste was also one of the most dangerous to make because if you added improperly crushed snake fangs, the cauldron would be literally incinerated.

“Considering your fantastic performance on our previous lesson,” the man continued in his usual deadly near-whisper which made children cry and adults break into sweat, “I would like to announce that the mark gained on this lesson will be decisive for the results of the term.”

“Um… Does it mean-“

“It means,” Snape hissed, rounding on a trembling, wide-eyed Ravenclaw and gripping the edges of her desk, “that should you fail… Your are under the risk of dropping out of my class.” Everyone gasped.

“Ten points from Ravenclaw, Miss Patil.” He released the piece of furniture and walked to his table. The man flicked his wand at the hourglass on it and tiny green grains, not unlike the emeralds in his House’s hourglass, started falling down. “Now, what are you waiting for? Get to the work, dunderheads!”

They rushed to their cauldrons and to the shelves with the ingredients needed. They weren’t allowed to use books or their notes on tests like this, and with a teacher like Snape no one risked getting caught while sneaking a few glances at the textbooks.

“Tom.” Greengrass nudged him slightly, looking around anxiously. Tom transferred his gaze to her, and the girl flushed. “Do we add beetles’ eyes before the fangs or after?”

“Before, of course,” Tom replied, feeling dark annoyance tearing at him for her ignorance. “Don’t forget to squish them. After that, stir four times clock-wise and- Better yet, let me do the stirring. Crush the fangs now. I’ll tell you what to do then.”

Greengrass nodded gratefully and followed his advice. Everyone knew he was the best at Potions – as in many other subjects, of course.

His motions were well-practiced and he never forgot to direct Greengrass to do her share of work well. He threw in small orders such as ‘make the cuts more even’ or ‘put more force into it’ or ‘you need to dice them, not slice’. This attitude earned him a breathy compliment about his proficiency as a teacher.

Yes, Tom supposed, had it not been for the idea of ruling the world, the idea of becoming a teacher would have fascinated him.

Others were faring much worse than their pair.

Ravenclaws were mostly good with the branches of magic that needed a good grasp on theory, but when it was turn of practical work, their efficiency expired and they simply lacked speed. While brewing potions like this one, when every moment was vital and impermissible to lose, their motions were frantic and messy and they tried to get everything done at once, which brought only more mistakes.

“Potter!” The sudden shout made most students jump. Tom sneered at them. “What are the properties of snake fangs?”

“Um… They can-“

“Wrong!”

_‘He hasn’t said anything yet!’_

“Minus ten points from Ravenclaw for your disastrous lack of knowledge. It seems like the House of the intelligent isn’t so smart if the likes of you are in it.” Snape noted that students fell silent and paused before barking, “What are you staring at, dunderheads? Down to work!”

Snape didn’t really yell, his voice was silky and smooth and would have been a delight to hear had it belonged to any other person. Yet no one dared complain or divert their attention from their own potions.

Tom knew he could probably stop all the insults directed at Potter with a few well-placed polite remarks and some Malfoy-bribing (the boy sat near him and they wouldn’t be called on conversing with each other) but…

Potter needed to understand how worse off he was without Tom’s help, and guidance, and protection. He needed to understand that turning away from him wasn’t acceptable and wouldn’t be tolerated in future. Once Tom was in a position to do so, he would have to establish some sort of a punishment guideline, but for now this kind of a small revenge would suffice.

About twenty minutes into the lesson, situation changed.

Not far away from Potter, Kevin Entwhistle whispered an obviously funny joke into Mandy Brocklehurst’s ears, and the girl burst out laughing. The mandrake roots she was about to powder slipped from her fingers and dropped into the steaming cauldron. Hers and Entwhistle’s eyes went wide before an explosion shook the walls of the classroom.

The smoke got into Tom’s eyes, and the boy cursed those two irresponsible fools but knew better than to rub his eyes. Although mandrake’s roots were used in many healing and anti-petrifying potions, the effect was reached by mixing them with the other components of a balm or mixture or solution and always in well-balanced proportions. Otherwise, when parts of the roots got onto skin, they would bring nasty side-effects. Tom didn’t want to spread the particles of mandrakes further on his skin.

The smoke cleared a bit and revealed a positively furious Snape in a stance with his wand out of the holster and flicking in the air. He was murmuring spells, too inaudibly to hear, and soon Tom felt the burning in his eyes cease. The groans and moans of pain – pathetic dweebs, couldn’t tolerate a wee bit of pain – eventually stopped as well.

Snape’s mighty glower didn’t.

As illogically as ever, his eyes were skewering _Potter_ with a glare, not the true culprits of the mishap, who were now trying to inch as far away from the murderous professor as possible. Snape never restricted himself when needing to take points away from any House other than his own.

“Potter!” the man hissed dangerously, making the mentioned boy flinch as if from a hit, and stalked to the viridian-eyed boy. “Now, tell me why you didn’t alert Entwhistle and Brocklehurst about the dangers of jabbering like the worst of Hufflepuffs during the delicate art of potions?”

“But, sir, we are not allowed to talk on tests-“

 “Excuses! As arrogant as your father, I see. I expected nothing more from a Potter spawn. Your father is an intolerable freak with a clear disregard for rules and-”

Since that moment, everything plummeted down.

The insults and jeers and mocking remarks were getting crueller with every passing second, and Tom could clearly see that Potter’s well of patience was coming to an end. The boy wasn’t a saint, after all.

Potter’s hands balled into small fists and his lips thinned. Still, he didn’t say anything. His expression grew grimmer as Snape’s derisive remarks about his father – Tom found it strange how Snape never slandered Lily Potter – grew viler.

“-always strutting around like you own the place… intolerable…”

The skin around Potter’s knuckles tightened.

“…relative intelligence… no talents… disgusting bully of a man…”

Students were all shifting in their seats uncomfortably, trying to take their minds off the happenings in the classroom. Only Malfoy’s face shone like stars in the darkness, grin wide up to his ears.

“The only instance he would be of use is if he were to get himself killed on one of the missions!”

This crudeness, and spite, and unfair bout of rage were the final straw.

“Don’t say a word against my father!” Potter finally exclaimed, standing up abruptly. The chair fell to the floor and the sound startled everyone out of their self-controlled and forced conversations about their potions.

All the heads turned his way. Some wore incredulous expressions, others were amazed at his gut to go against the terrifying professor, and the rest of the students had trouble comprehending everything that had just transpired.

Harry Potter, _the_ quiet and self-controlled and kind Harry Potter who always helped whenever you asked him for it, and took pleasure in giving this help, and was probably the epitome of all things good and Light and respectful… The very same boy stood tall under the speculative murmurs and funny looks and uncomprehending stares. Tom found his mouth parting a bit in fascination. He was madly curious as to how this would sort out.

Snape, who had been in the middle of pacing, halted mid-step and slowly, almost like in a movie, turned around to face the son of the woman he desired and the man he vented all his hatred on.

“Excuse me?” His voice was a dangerous hiss, almost too low for human hearing. His predatory steps were soft against the cold dungeon floor, and he looked indeed like the mascot of the House he was the Head of.

Potter’s determination never wavered. He didn’t look away from the black all-absorbing pools that were like a mirror into a soul equally dark.

“Pardon me my words, sir,” Potter began in a murmur almost as soft as the professor’s. Students stretched their heads and strained their hearing, desperate to learn what he was about to say. “But you are behaving like a jealous git!”

Snape sucked in a breath, his visage and shoulders stiff with fury.

Children gasped and turned to their partners with eyes full of horror and shock. Tom heard Zabini whisper ‘brilliant’, heard Nott continuously mutter ‘no, no, no, he certainly has more brains than to do what he is doing’, he heard Malfoy squeak and complain about Potter’s rudeness to Snape, and he heard Greengrass force out a subdued whistle…

All of this noise didn’t matter. Tom’s eyes were trained on a small wizard’s figure, which hid a tremendous willpower that could either destroy civilizations or create new worlds.

Tom felt his fascination flourish and bloom, and his heart rate quickened up. His heart actually beat so hard against his ribcage at this display of silent force that he could hardly hear his own entangled thoughts, which were jumbled webs of admiring praises.

“The lesson is over. Potter stays here and the rest of you may leave the classroom,” Snape finally said darkly, his eyes drilling into Potter’s bright ones. When no one moved or made any noise, either affirmative or negative, he barked, “Now!”

Everyone scrambled to their seats and, with lasting stares in the direction of two contrasting figures, made it to the door.  Neither Snape nor Potter moved, waiting for others to leave.

Tom’s eyes lingered on Potter’s form even as the dark-haired Slytherin gathered his things into his bag and adjusted the strap on his shoulder. Greengrass took hold of his cold pale hand and slowly led him out. Tom paid the stupid girl no mind while he contemplated what would be happening inside.

Was Potter about to get the nastiest detention in the history of Hogwarts? Everything was possible. And Tom didn’t even doubt that the snarky man could invent something no one had come up before, just to see James Potter’s son sweat and suffer.

When he was leaving, Potter threw him a fleeting glance from his position of being stared down by Snape. For the first time in ages, Tom saw the boy’s face void of stubborn hostility or a dark scowl.

He missed it. The brilliant green eyes stayed in his mind as Greengrass dragged him to the next lesson.

XXX

Severus stared at the whelp in front of him and couldn’t believe the nerve of this little- Breathing slowly and mentally counting to ten – he could have been a spy with the way he usually concealed his emotions – Severus worked on regaining control of his emotions.

He swished his robes and swirled around, the pitch black fabric grazing Potter’s hand. Severus strode to the centre of the classroom before stopping short. The man’s spine was straight and rigid, and he was well aware, deriving secret pleasure from the knowledge, that the mere sight of this posture screamed torture and slow death to every unfortunate student unlucky enough to behold it.

As usual, ‘everyone’ didn’t include Potter’s spawn, Severus reflected dimly, viewing the blank blackboard a few steps away from him.

The man took a long breath and felt nails digging almost painfully in his palm. It would have been hurtful, had he not remembered feeling worse off after that despicable, disgusting man’s fists tattooed themselves in an intricate pattern on his waxy skin.

A film of calmness covered his being, and the remembrance of his childhood years brought Severus to turn around and take a few steps towards Potter, who gulped and flicked a nervous glance down at his cauldron.

The potion was ruined anyway (the boy should have stirred it a dozen of times clockwise and six times counter-clockwise already, not to mention adding the powdered fangs) so Severus took hold of his wand and tapped the rim of the cauldron with the wooden stick. The sticky mass vanished.

“Twenty points off Ravenclaw for utterly ruining a potion,” Snape said in a controlled voice. Now, he regretted having snapped like this twice in a week. It was unacceptable, something causing McGonagall and Flitwick to secretly snort in his direction, and the man knew the person responsible for it, which made his loathing grow.

Potter’s green eyes flashed a poisonous colour, kind of like the Killing Curse.

They weren’t Lily’s. Not exactly. Brighter and greener, with soot eyelashes framing them nicely, they were not out of this world. Breathtaking, as many people said.

However, Severus didn’t drown in them as he did in the colour of fresh grass, the trademark feature of Lily’s eyes.

Silence stretched and was bordering on awkward. Now that Severus was silent and didn’t spew out more insults at James, he could relish in the chance to see Potter junior squirm under his steely dark gaze and look away, uncomfortable.

“Tut, tut, tut,” the man finally murmured. His voice caressed Potter’s ears, soft as a poisonous kiss; shudders-inspiring yet deadly. “You dared talk to me like that, Potter? In front of everyone?”

The boy stood silent and didn’t react as Severus circled him, deriving sadistic pleasure in Potter’s abused lower lip and embarrassed flush and clamped together fists.

 “I could destroy you. I could obliterate your future career in such a way that not even your parents’ recommendations will ever help you recover. I can expel you from here in a few words.”

“You are only saying this, Professor,” Potter finally let his voice be heard. It was almost as skilfully controlled as his own, yet Snape could hear dread seeping in. His eyes narrowed in anger at the blatant disrespect the blasted Potter spawn was showing.

“Can you repeat it, Mr. Potter?” he asked dangerously and, as swift as a blur, he grabbed the back of Potter’s neck with one hand, unable to contain himself any longer.

His horrid mood throughout the whole week, the things that the pureblood disgrace had said to him about Lily, and Potter’s impertinence had all flocked together to become a weapon able to demolish Severus’s inner walls of self-control.

“You can tip off Headmaster Dumbledore, yes,” Potter continued, placing his tiny palms on Severus’s much bigger hand. The skin of Potter’s knuckles and the thinness of his fingers were so much like Lily’s that Severus found himself reaching for them as he covered those hands with his other palm.

If Potter felt something was wrong, he didn’t call him on it. Finally, some bit of consideration on a Potter’s part. Still, Snape withdrew the hand immediately, berating himself for seeing Lily where he could find no hint of her.

“And that’s exactly what I will do, have no doubt about it,” Severus snapped, releasing the fragile neck – it could snap so easily, the man was certain – and walking around Potter to come face to face with the menace. “Talking back to a teacher, ruining a potion, losing so many points… Not to mention all the small things you have done throughout two years that have been a disaster for the school. It all is begging for expulsion.”

“Oh, sir, I know you will fabricate any proofs of your made-up accusation to get me expelled. Go on with it.” Severus’s smirk vanished from his face fast, his teeth bared in a snarl and fingers twitching to get a hold of this neck again and possibly crack it this time.

 “And then,” Potter continued with this infuriating little smile on his face, “ _You_ will have to bear with my mother’s devastation and cries. She won’t let Dumbledore expel me so easily. You will see the way she will stand on her knees and beg for the Headmaster to let me stay. You will be there through it all, and even if she never finds out who pushed for my expulsion and I will never tell her… You will just _know_ it is your entire fault.”

Snape hated the truth in those words. He had forgotten how the boy was. Usually so compliant and hesitant and moderate, Harry Potter morphed into a person whose words were as cutting as the sharpest of knives, mostly because the boy never lied. This honesty was often more hurtful than any untruthful obscenities.

“You dare,” Snape breathed out, wide-eyed and staring at Harry as though he was seeing the boy for the first time. The whelp had an infuriatingly calm expression on his face, his back straight and the entire posture firm, which contrasted greatly with his delicate bone structure.

“Yes, sir,” Potter answered simply. His verdant eyes were breathtaking, probably the only good thing about the brat, and were staring at him with a blazing inferno of steely resolve. Snape never liked this fire, never liked anything about the nuisance.

“You wouldn’t protest and would let me go through with this plan, even knowing it will bring your mother pain?”

“Ridding her only son of a bright future would bring her more pain, I think, sir,” Potter said in that irritatingly polite way of his. He didn’t raise his voice anymore and was now as quiet and closed off as ever.

Snape paused and stared hard into the gaze of equal intensity, his black whirlwinds boring holes in it. The man knew a lost battle when he saw one.

“You will have two weeks of detention with Filch.” Severus’s tone was steady, never wavering even when the man moved to his teacher’s table. It was empty for a change, with no handed in assignments or small bottles of potions cluttering it. “And I will take seventy points away from Ravenclaw for talking out of turn.”

Potter’s eyes went wide as the boy realized that the rest of the House wasn’t going to be happy with him about this outburst and consequent loss of points. Of course, Severus wouldn’t hold the knowledge of the culprit to himself. It was only kind to share information, right?

“You may gather your things and leave,” Severus finished in a disinterested tone. Fishing out a quill, he opened a drawer and pulled out a few papers from the third years. He immediately marked a Weasley’s work with a big red ‘T’ for ‘troll’.

Potter hurried to throw his things into his bag, not really caring about their condition and wrinkled pages. His fingers shook a bit, and Severus wasn’t sure whether the trembling came from avoiding a potential disaster of being expelled or having lost that many points for his House.

When he had chucked all his supplies into the bag and adjusted the strap on his shoulder, Potter hurried to the door. His fingers clutched the handle but didn’t push it. Severus looked up from Tom Riddle’s disgustingly perfect essay from the other day and got into the stack of papers by accident. Potter’s back and shoulders stiffened and the man ignored the urge to violently shake them.

“Nothing is keeping you here, Potter.” He wouldn’t bark or shout. He wouldn’t. He had much more dignity than that, his irritation notwithstanding.

Potter wavered, not answering, and Severus sneered.

 _‘If the boy wants to be late for his next lesson, let him,’_ the man thought viciously and gripped the quill strong enough to leave bruises on his thin and delicate fingers. _‘The brat’s housemates will be even less happy with him.’_

“Are you- are you really not going to do anything else about it?” Potter finally deigned him with an answer, uncertainly stepping from foot to foot. “My behaviour this lesson, I mean.”

 _‘How foolish,_ ’ Severus sneered. A question like this was something a Gryffindor would ask, not a supposedly smart Ravenclaw. Utterly pathetic.

A Slytherin would relish in the sight of his enemy defeated and at his own glorious victory. Whatever glimpses of Slytherin wisdom Severus could sometimes see in the boy were completely drowned out by those bouts of stupidity that would have made any cunning man use as a weapon against Potter.

Of course, Severus Snape belonged to this kind of people.

He knew of a particular knife he couldn’t resist the temptation of twisting. His humiliation today and the day of his outburst and total loss of control wouldn’t allow it.

He smiled a nasty smile. His muscles knew of no other sort.

“Not today. I will leave the education in your manners until the time you will officially be forced to call me ‘father’.”

Potter whirled around to be met with the victoriously smug smirk of Severus’s. The ferocity in his eyes didn’t faze the Potions master.

“Then you have a long time to wait, sir,” Potter spat out and stumbled out of the classroom.

Severus leaned back into the familiar cosiness of his high-backed chair. His pale lips twitched and he wished he had a glass of wine right now to celebrate his small victory over Potter’s spawn.

He would have to write a letter to Lily. She would never appreciate what he had wanted to do to her son – and he would never tell her – but the man would do his hardest to make his threat come true. The resistance could come in the face of Lily’s darned husband (and Merlin knew he didn’t deserve the pride to be called that) but even that could be dealt with. No matter how much Potter Senior’s words had ruffled his feathers, Severus would wait before inflicting the full force of his revenge on the man.

James Potter knew exactly how true the words Severus had spoken to his brat could be.

XXX

_ December, 7th. _

The moment Snape emerged from the entrance to the Slytherin common room, Tom looked up from his Potions homework, a weary frown on his face. Snape didn’t like going down here, and the boy wondered as to the reasons for his presence today.

“Snape? What the hell is _he_ doing here? Doesn’t he usually avoid the place like plague?” Zabini whispered to Malfoy, who glared at him for showing such blatant disrespect to their Potions Master.

“Does your mouth stay shut for at least a minute?”

“Hypocrite! You are no less talkative than I am, Nott!”

“You wankers, how about shutting up?”

“ _I_ will shut you up if you want to-“

“Shush, he is looking this way!”

All the students in the common room pretended to be awfully busy with their homework under the stern glare of their Head of House. Tom inwardly scoffed at the two-facedness. Had Snape walked in a few minutes earlier, he would have caught the common scene of some third years practicing hexes on a rat and Greengrass soundly bitching at the unfairness of McGonagall, who didn’t agree that a mirror could be used for _other_ purposes that Transfiguration.

Snape strolled to the middle of the common room. His robes were the blackest black and, combined with the waxiness of his skin and the equal black of his hair and eyes, the man radiated gloominess. The impressive scowl on his face didn’t help.

 _‘Bat. A human bat.’_ The thought fleeted through Tom’s mind not for the first time since he had first seen his professor.

“I have an announcement,” their professor declared in his usual whispery tone. Everyone stopped their activities and listened attentively, some students inching closer to Snape to hear him better. A clumsy fourth-year tripped on the hem of her robes, and, for once, no one paid attention.

“As if we haven’t understood that already,” Zabini mocked quietly. Everyone was too used to him speaking his mind whenever he wanted, so a single ‘hush’ from Malfoy was all he got.

“As you know, the Duelling lessons start on December, 17th. I want you all to be in top shape and ready to cast the most powerful spells you know. I won’t tolerate any laziness or inability to cast a most basic hex or jinx a child should know. You are going to be the best at those classes. If not, I wish you luck on your detention with me. I heard some people relax while washing cauldrons.”

“Why?” the girl who had tripped asked and flushed under the attention. Tom sneered but he shared her curiosity.

“Do you not want to be the best?” Snape asked mockingly, taking a step closer to the sofas by the fireplace. “If your aim is to be the _worst_ , I can surely arrange that.”

Someone laughed but it was too weak to be heard, and the cowed girl just nodded and didn’t speak anymore.

“I think she wanted to ask why go so far as to punish students who don’t do well in the classes,” Tom drawled loudly. He wanted to know why go so far as to hand out detentions which would also take away some of Snape’s free time. This dedication coming from this man was unnatural. “Duelling Club isn’t mandatory. Certainly, you cannot do that.”

Snape smiled. The smile revealed his yellowing teeth and, with a few quick steps, he reached Tom’s sofa and rounded on the boy. The moment reminded the boy of the incident with Potter on their first Potions lesson. This time, bad breath washed over him instead of the other boy.

“Mr. Riddle, our rumoured prodigy,” he hissed and leaned in, hunching over Tom like a stone gargoyle. “I fear that no matter how talented you may or may not be, it doesn’t give you a right to criticize _me_.”

“I’m not criticizing you, sir,” Tom said with much dignity lacing his voice. He revelled in the impressed and intent stares of the upper years, their hushed whispers and wonder written all over their faces. Snape’s face, on the contrary, wasn’t so complimentary. “I’m just asking you why. Why do you need to secure our victory? We are not supposed to win a prize, are we?”

“ _Were_ not supposed,” Snape corrected, his eyes gleaming. Slytherins tensed, waiting for him to elaborate. “James Potter made a proposition and our Headmaster, being his usual Gryffindor-loving self, agreed.” He made a dramatic pause before continuing. “From now onward, this year Hogwarts will hold another competition between Houses. As if Quidditch and house points were not enough, now we can earn the Duelling Club Cup.”

The starting commotion died at a single glower from Snape.

“Of course, I want my House to win. We have been doing good job at the House Cup and Quidditch Cup – other than last year.” The Slytherin Quidditch team winced and turned away. “I don’t know whether James Potter is going to encourage Gryffindors or his dear son to win, and I don’t care. All I care about is my House. And I promise to make your detentions _most_ unpleasant if you fail to meet my expectations.”

Tom felt a thrill run through him. His influence was steadily growing, and now he was facing the chance to boost his popularity. All Slytherins knew they owned the House Cup because of him, but a Dark Lord couldn’t be respected just because of intelligence; power was of the same importance, and the Club was a perfect opportunity to show everyone just what he was capable of.

“Are first years allowed into the club?” someone asked timidly.

“Age and your level of duelling skill and your experience don’t matter.” Snape, who had stepped back from Tom some time during his speech, looked at them coldly. “The judges will all be prejudiced against you. They won’t wish for Slytherins to win. And that’s the reason why you should spend your time working hard and preparing for the duels. Always be one step ahead of your enemies.”

Students all around nodded in approval, some elbowing each other excitedly and whispering in their friends’ ears. Tom was so immersed in his careful planning of a practice schedule that he almost didn’t notice Snape’s hiss of ‘silence!’

 “All further details will be discussed with you during the classes themselves. Now, I trust you remember that tomorrow is the last day I accept the names of those staying at Hogwarts for Christmas. If I don’t have your names by tomorrow and your parents conveniently forget about you and set off to another country for a second honey-moon, you are free to spend holidays on King’s Cross station waiting for the train.”

No one doubted his words. The man stayed true to them no matter how harsh they were or how many people would get angry with him in the process.

Not looking at his snakes anymore, Snape whirled around and stomped out of the common room, probably to return to his beloved potions.

“Hey, Riddle!” Zabini called out. Tom shifted in his seat to look at the boy, irritated at being once again distracted from his plotting.

“ _What_?” he bit out.

“Remember that you are spending this Christmas with us?”

Tom blinked before scowling. Of course, he hadn’t. The Ball offered an opportunity even greater than the one the Duelling Club presented. He could make acquaintances with lots of influential people and prove himself to someone other than a stupid clingy Hufflepuff or boisterous Gryffindor.

 “Even if I wanted to, you’d never let me forget,” Tom said and shrugged.

“You are going to be great,” Zabini murmured, a strange smile appearing on his dark face. “She will so love you…”

“Who are you talking about?” Tom demanded, creasing his eyebrows and staring at his unusually absent-minded classmate.

Zabini didn’t reply, so Tom simply returned to his books.

XXX

_ December, 17th. _

James Potter felt nervous.

He had already Fire-called his best friend Sirius Black, who had reassured him that everything was going to be all right, but even those words didn’t console him. James didn’t want to fuck this up. Fuck up in front of his only son, no less.

At the thought of Harry he ran a hand through his hair and sighed tiredly.

The boy was so unlike James remembered himself being in his youth. Harry took mostly after Lily, which made the possibility of bonding between father and son almost nonexistent.

Harry didn’t share James’s interest in pranks, nor did he share James’s passion for Quidditch. Harry adored flying and brooms and the sense of freedom that overwhelmed a person in the air, but he also disliked competition and flying for speed.

They used to play in the air when Harry was a small child, and James missed those carefree times. Nowadays, no matter how much he asked – no, _demanded_ – Harry to join him for flying, the boy always politely refused and turned his attention to those boring dusty books that James would have gladly gotten rid of.

Who in the modern world needed to _read_ , anyway.

It also pained and worried James that Harry seemed to spend more time with the Blacks and the Lestranges than with him recently. His concern escalated further when James got a letter from Maura Zabini requesting his son’s presence at Zabini Christmas Party.

 _Zabinis!_ Countless Dark wizards, most of whom James couldn’t wait to get into Azkaban, would be there, and his poor little Harry would be forced to breathe in the same air and touch them and talk to them! The idea of his child socializing with this scum infuriated him.

His Harry wasn’t a Dark wizard. True, James didn’t have that much free time to learn all about Harry’s tastes and hobbies and interests, but the man was sure his son couldn’t do anything wrong!

“Thinking hard, James?” The Head of the Law Enforcement raised his head to look at the tall old man with madly twinkling eyes. The mere sight of this twinkle reminded James of the happy times, and the man smiled.

“Just some Harry stuff.”

“Ah, your son. A lovely child, I should say. Completely unlike you in your youth, though.” Albus pulled a lemon drop out of his pocket and popped it into his mouth after James rejected the treat.

“He is more like Lils. You know, has his nose up some book all the time, doesn’t do pranks, doesn’t do Quidditch, doesn’t-“

“Like bullying.” James winced at the words and his gaze drifted to the side. He avoided Albus’s piercing eyes.

“If you are about Snivellus, he wasn’t an innocent lamb,” he protested weakly, raising his hands in self-defence.

“No, but you were not right in doing what you did to him,” Albus said, stern lines crossing his face. “You cannot justify almost killing the poor boy. No wonder he still hates you.”

“I wasn’t there alone!” James snapped, angry at Albus for reminding him of that dark page in his life, angry at that damn Snivellus for dragging him into this mess, and, most of all, angry at himself for what he had almost done on that night. “Fuck, Albus, you cannot preach about it to me my entire life! Sirius was there, and so was Peter and… Remus.”

He fell silent. Waves of reverie washed all over him, and familiar misery embraced him. Remembering his former friend and the way they parted… James longed for a cigarette.

Albus’s eyes softened considerably at his former student’s hunched form and loud gulp. He came closer and patted James’s arm compassionately.

“I won’t bring this up again. Forgive me. Severus was my student, too, and I can’t forget the way your group treated him. Unfairly treated, I have to say.” The Headmaster tightened his hold on the shoulder before releasing it completely.

“Harry likes politics,” James said suddenly. Albus threw him a surprised look.

“This child doesn’t strike me as the kind. He has natural qualities of a leader, I tell you, and in future he might be a prominent figure in the Wizarding World, yet I don’t think he resembles a child with this interest. Young Tom Riddle from Slytherin or Draco Malfoy or Blaise Zabini is more likely to engage in political games and power plays.”

“He’s been doing some research this summer,” James whispered, closing his eyes. He didn’t want his child to see such atrocities, even in newspapers. “About the werewolf attacks.”

Albus’s expression turned from empathetic into grave. The man sighed and shook his head, examining the palms of his hands.

“How is the Auror Office? Do they know who is behind it? Werewolves other than Fenrir Greyback, I mean.”

“No progress. We are investigating every bloody detail and there is still no news.” James gulped and his eyes wandered to the floor polished by the small creatures living in the kitchen. Even the memory this floor brought, the one of Lily persisting in the liberation of House Elves with this incredibly cute, flushed face didn’t bring a smile to his face. “I think that Remus is the Beta.”

“Oh, James.” The old man’s voice was old and heavy, spiked with pity and painful recollections of a once gentle tawny-haired boy.

James pursed his lips and wished there was a pebble nearby to hit. Alas, the squeaky clean tiles didn’t provide any distractions from the uncomfortable topic.

Albus noticed his discomfort and smiled forcibly, his eyes still a dim blue instead of its usual vibrant shade.

“So? I didn’t have many opportunities to say hello to Harry this year. At least, if the only thing concerning politics he reads is about the werewolves, it’s not bad. Actually, I believe that politics is a useful science. You must know it better than anyone, Head of the Law Enforcement Department.”

James nodded absently and ran a hand through his hair again. It was messy anyway, so the man wasn’t overly concerned the gesture would worsen it.

“Nah. He also reads lots of books on magical theory. Oh, and helps Lily. She’s asked him to do some research for her. My dear Lils doesn’t have a second to spare, what with her Potions work and job in St. Mungo’s.”

“What research?”

“I don’t remember,” James lied. Lying wasn’t his favourite pastime, but he had learned to do it a lot, both in his Marauder past and Ministry worker present. “I don’t dabble in Lily’s stuff, you know. I’d rather spend a holiday chasing some criminal…”

“You are incorrigible,” Albus chuckled. James didn’t pay it any heed, his mind already on the other matters.

Harry had volunteered himself for the research on Flamel and the places he was possibly hiding in. The boy had even gone so far as to demand complete passiveness on their part, telling he would do it himself!

The Philosopher’s Stone and why it was needed was a complete mystery to James, and, not for the first time, the bitter thoughts of Lily and the way they were drifting apart burned inside him like a singe, yet this time James didn’t turn away from the truth.

He didn’t understand his wife at all. Probably, he had never done, even during their happy honeymoon and untroubled years of mirth before the career ladder urged them both to climb it up.

James sat down on the edge of a large podium at the centre of the Great Hall, which had been cleared for the Duelling Club classes and would be filled with tables again by dinner. Albus, being his usual understanding self, caught on James’s desire to be alone and left the Hall, asking James to drop by later and tell how the lesson went.

A memory of Harry’s face when James had told him they wouldn’t be spending Christmas together last year flashed through his mind and guilt nibbled on him. He vowed to himself to never neglect his son again – his _beloved_ son, however rarely he showed it to Harry – but those were just empty promises.

Those promises had been dominating his life for many years, and James knew that he would always put victims of heinous crimes, punishments of criminals, and investigation into potential disastrous mass murders before his own child, just like Lily would never put off an operation or healing because Harry needed her help in some petty problem or her company.

Self-hatred wasn’t anything new, so James just patiently waited for Snape, Lockhart, and then the students to walk in through the huge doors.

He plastered a cheerful smile on his face, sent a wink at Harry, and took a deep breath, preparing to speak.

It was time to get some teaching done.

XXX

“Hey, kiddos!”

Tom watched as their Duelling Instructor raised a hand to greet the gathered students. A few girly giggles rang out and smiles brightened the faces of lower years. Gryffindors greeted their idol rambunctiously while Slytherins preferred to keep their silence and observe.

“So, today we are going to get some duelling done,” James Potter continued in that unnaturally cheerful voice of his. Tom noticed the tight lines around his eyes, the same ones that marred Lily Potter’s face, and glanced at his stubborn Ravenclaw ally, whose face was void of emotion.

“I’ll explain the rules now. First of all, second years duel with second years, third years with third years, and the like. It’ll be a tad unfair to arrange it otherwise, right? National duelling competitions have been abolished in Great Britain since a nasty death by a tripping hex – poor sod, fell right onto a summoned knife – so the only prize is the House Cup. And, well, if you are going to be an Auror someday, it’ll help if you are rumoured to be good at practical magic. Keep up with me, kiddos?”

Weasley grinned and elbowed Finnigan, and most Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs striving for a job in this sphere were exhilarated at the chance to prove themselves to Britain’s most influential ex-Auror.

Pity that Tom would be the one to take away that chance from them.

“Our first lessons,” the man continued, holding out an arm to quell the commotion, “will be spent learning some simple duelling techniques. Does everyone know the correct way to hold a wand?”

Someone snorted and soon many others followed. Tom didn’t. His eyebrows knotted in thought and he watched on, aware from his reading that the smallest and seemingly insignificant things like this could make the difference in a battle.

As a Dark Lord, he would be supposed to fight numerous wizards disagreeing with him, and how was this possible if the boy couldn’t even hold his wand properly.

“Even six year old children know!” a Ravenclaw – Anthony Goldstein – proclaimed loudly, and the others let out sounds of agreement and nodded continuously. Only Potter and Terry Boot didn’t follow their classmates, staying silent instead.

“You’ll be surprised how untrue it is,” James said gently. He was about to continue when Snape, who had been staying in the corner as a brooding speck of dreariness, decided to remind them of his existence.

“Are we going to actually start or is this ‘class’ just a waste of my time?” he demanded, his black eyes burning with hatred at the sight of his long-time rival. Lockhart rushed in to support the Potions Master. Tom thought it was a wonder he had held on for so long.

“Yes, yes, I completely agree with Severus.” The sneer on his face told clearly what Snape thought of this support. “I am a busy person, and you are lucky as it is to have me as the assistant of your instructor. I think we should start with a performance duel.”

James shrugged, and said, “Sure. It’s the first lesson only. We need to show them what they are going to learn anyway. I can teach them duelling techniques and incantations during the next lesson.”

Lockhart and Snape duelled, with Lockhart predictably and spectacularly botching up his performance. Some guys laughed at the fraud’s expense while most of the girls threw them fulminating glowers for daring to offend their second favourite teacher after James Potter.

Lockhart dusted his bright golden robes and stood up, smiling as radiantly as ever and not at all bothered by Snape’s sneers or James Potter’s mocking chortles.

“So, does anyone want to try?”

Silence fell at the words. Nobody wanted to make a fool of himself. Tom wasn’t afraid of going up to the stage but the prospect of missing something wasn’t thrilling. He preferred to watch a duel first. The example with Snape and Lockhart was hardly educational. He had come across ‘Expelliarmus’ in his studies.

“Hmmm…” Lockhart’s eyes lit up like an electric bulb. He clapped his hands brightly and strode over to Potter, grabbing the mortified Ravenclaw’s shoulder and dragging him to the stage. “Mr. Potter here will demonstrate us his knowledge in this area.”

“Professor, I don’t think it’s a good idea-“

“Harry,” James Potter halted his son gently, coming over to the suddenly still boy. “I’m sure you will do well. How can you not, with a father like me?”

The winning smile was no dimmer than Lockhart’s and drew a round of soft swoons out of many girls and, disturbingly, some Gryffindor first year with a camera. Tom decided to keep his distance from the boy, just in case.

Harry – now that two Potters inhabited the school, Tom decided he’d call the other boy ‘Harry’ – pressed his lips tight and climbed up the narrow stage, which somewhat resembled a runway. He walked to one of its ends and stopped, waiting patiently for the name of his opponent to be called out.

“Now, Mr. Boot-“

“Mr. Malfoy,” Snape interrupted Lockhart. He gestured for Malfoy to join him on the stage. The blond complied and strolled to the opposite of Po- Harry.

Tom lifted his face to observe the scene better, madly interested what this would result in. Potter’s scrawny and petit figure didn’t encourage anyone to think of him as a worthy opponent. And he was allegedly Light. Malfoy knew quite a few borderline Dark hexes that were nasty but didn’t step over the line of Light.

Harry must know about his weakness, too; even from this distance Tom could see some perspiration on the boy’s forehead and the balled fists. The anxious glances he kept sending to his father and Malfoy proved this point.

“Well, this can work too, I guess,” Lockhart said, blinking. He strutted to Harry and wrapped his hand around Harry’s arm, leaning in and whispering something in the boy’s ear. Snape was doing the same with Malfoy and James Potter saluted his son from his own position in the middle of the podium.

“You boys know the rules of dueling, right?” Both Harry and Malfoy nodded absently, their eyes never leaving each other’s.

“Just start please!” Dean Thomas shouted impatiently, spittle flying out of his mouth.

“Harry, mate, rip him into shreds!” Ron Weasley flailed his arms upwards. His fists were clenched and face a ruddy colour it usually was when the ginger’s excitement couldn’t be contained any longer.

Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs threw their hands up into the air, shouting words of encouragement and the Weasley twins even summoned a small illusion of a dark blue raven gouging out the eyes of a huge green snake. Snape dispelled the image with a quick and angry flick of his wand.

James smiled slightly at their enthusiasm and started counting, “Three… Two...”

Harry’s face was set, determination beaming from his green eyes. Malfoy’s face wore a sneer but his shoulders tensed and fingers stiffened around the wand. They bowed to each other, gazes locked and battling with each other.

“One!”

Before the word escaped Potter’s mouth, Malfoy was already in the middle of the Disarming Spell. Harry cried out in surprise and a blast of invisible wind knocked him down on the hard wooden floor. He hissed in pain and rolled to the side, cradling his bruised ribs.

Tom stubbornly held back from gasping. He concentrated on how impressively Harry held on to his wand despite the spell, not letting it escape his hands. Considering that both opponents had their wands, the duel continued.

Wearing a disappointed frown, Potter made a move to dash to his son but was deterred by a held out hand and a stubborn shake of Harry’s head.

Harry’s knees shook when he stood up and his legs wobbled. His usual politely blank face twisted into a grimace of anger, and the memory of Harry slapping him in the library rushed through Tom’s mind. The Slytherin boy refused the gleeful smile threatening to appear on his face. Things were going to get hot.

“Tarantallegra!” Harry shouted in a clear voice.

Malfoy’s blue eyes widened and he dashed to the side, hoping to avoid the jinx. Alas, his speed was no match for the red beam coming from Harry’s wand and his legs danced humiliatingly. The blond shrieked when he couldn’t stop moving and angry tears appeared in the corners of his eyes.

“Stop it!” he shouted at last. Everyone was watching on, too enraptured in the sight to move. “Potter, you bastard! Take off the hex!”

Harry’s voice was calm and controlled when he spoke. “Expelliarmus!” He didn’t need to shout; Malfoy’s wand left the blond’s loosened grasp easily and flew towards the Ravenclaw, whose face hosted a small smile.

“I win!” he declared, breaking the silence that had engulfed everyone. Thunderous applause rang out from the Gryffindor part of the students – Weasley’s shouts of ‘I knew it!’ were the loudest – and the Ravenclaws clapped politely but no less warmly and proudly while Hufflepuffs embraced each other and even some Slytherin smirked in approval.

“Well,” James Potter said after slight hesitation, “it was a good fight. Now, let’s someone else try-“

“You cheated!” Malfoy bellowed, embarrassed and red-faced. He muttered an incantation Tom hadn’t heard of and pointed his wand at the spot in front of Harry.

“Mr. Malfoy, I think all was fair- Oh, no!”

A large snake materialized out of thin air and horrified gasps pierced the silence. Greengrass covered her mouth with her hands, Nott face palmed, and Zabini muttered “Idiot.” His eyes were glued to Harry and- was it concern swimming in them?

Tom took a step back. Others could stare and act disapproving all they wanted but he wasn’t going to stand like an idiot when a snake was about to pounce on one of them. At the moment, this person seemed to be Harry Potter.

The Ravenclaw’s face had gone white as chalk and he raised a trembling hand with his wand still in it.

“Evanesco!” he shouted and it would have worked, Tom knew, having come across this spell in the library.

Unfortunately, things never went as planned when Gilderoy Lockhart was nearby.

The baby blue blast flying toward the disoriented snake clashed with a red beam coming from Lockhart’s wand. A small explosion followed, and the snake was lifted high into the air by an invisible force before it crashed onto the stage and uncoiled, raising its head and hissing threateningly.

Tom understood every word it was hissing and wasn’t surprised that the angry words were violent threats and promises of brutal death.

_“Foolish humans! Now my fangs will sink into your skin and my venom will enter your body. It will be slow and excruciating and…”_

Snape stalled, seemingly torn between letting his enemy’s son die and saving him, and Lockhart sprang into action. He was about to spout another moronic and useless incantation before Potter’s painful seizing of his shoulder halted him.

Infuriated, the Duelling Instructor raised his wand in preparation to fire a hex at the snake but it lunged at Harry, entwining his body. Potter stilled, looking awkward with his wand ready but complete inaction.

Immediately, Tom knew that casting a curse now could damage Harry, too, and the boy wondered if this was the moment he should reveal his extraordinary but feared talent. If Harry was about to die…

His clenched fists were sweaty and Tom caught himself on gripping the fabric of his robes to wipe them. His eyes drifted madly from the snake’s glinting fangs – the blasted thing was spurting threats that no one but him could understand – to Harry’s clammy face and damp hair and anxiously trembling body.

 _“You are no fun,”_ the snake suddenly hissed. _“With rabbits, I at least know they can understand me and visualise the torture they are about to undergo. You are stupider than an animal, not comprehending the simplest words.”_

Just as James Potter was about to realize that his son would prefer being injured rather than dead, the snake’s jaws widened and it struck.

The needle-thin fangs were an inch away from piercing the tender skin before Tom spoke up.

_“Stop!”_

Greengrass’s and Zabini’s heads spun toward him as did everyone else’s present. Justin Finch-Fletchley who was standing nearby almost fainted at the hissing sounds coming out of Tom’s throat.

“A Parselmouth!” someone yelled needlessly. Everyone was watching, and James Potter’s face was filled with disgust while Hufflepuffs, for the first time, inched away from him despite standing not that close.

Tom didn’t see any of them. He stepped onto the platform and walked to the snake, passing Snape, passing Lockhart, passing James Potter. His eyes were locked with the snake’s and he didn’t let them drift to Potter’s face.

He feared of what he would see there. Respect? Relief? Gratitude? Despise? Hatred? Or overwhelming fear plastered on everyone else’s faces?

 _‘Now is not the time to think about this,’_ he reminded himself and straightened his shoulders, mustering up as much confidence as was possible.

“Release him and come down on the floor,” he ordered. The mutterings behind and around him only increased in volume at the confirmation of his Dark ability.

 _“A speaker?”_ The snake flicked its tongue. _“How wonderful! Of course I will do whatever you want me to! Are you my new master?”_

Its coils eagerly released Harry and it descended onto the floor. Free from the tormenting grasp, Harry massaged his throat and exhaled with relief. His legs gave in and he dropped on his knees, breathing hard and heavily. His hair shadowed his face completely.

As soon as the snake slithered to a spot some distance away from Harry, the boy’s father rushed to shout the Banishing Spell. The incantation echoed throughout the Great Hall and the sound beat the thumping of Tom’s heart in his ears. With a ‘pop’ and a betrayed look sent in Tom’s direction the snake disappeared.

Tom could hear Harry’s breathing but chose to look at James instead. The man’s face was closed off when he threw a look at his son, disappointment crossing his face once more. Tom frowned at this reaction and opened his mouth to break the stretched for too long silence before James Potter moved his gaze on him. The man’s lips thinned and disgust fleetingly marred his handsome aristocratic features.

_‘Oh, yes. They know I’m a Parselmouth now.’_

Tom took control of himself and lifted his chin proudly. Without a glance in the teachers’ or Harry’s direction, he strode to his Housemates who closed his ranks around him in a familiar circle.

 _‘Don’t let them think I’m bothered by my talent,’_ Tom told himself in his mind. He was damn proud of his ability, which was going to win him some more allies among Slytherin upper years.

“I- I think the lesson is over,” James Potter stuttered out. “Everyone go wherever you want to go and don’t forget to turn up for dinner.”

The students were too stunned by the happenings to argue and all trotted to the doors like obedient puppies. Tom’s eyes widened in surprise when he felt Greengrass tug at his sleeve and smile comfortingly.

“Everything is going to be all right,” she said. “Others like you, even Hufflepuffs. I doubt their views on you will change… too much.”

Tom curled his lip. Who did she think he was? Of course, this public admittance of his Parseltongue was a slight glitch in his plans but nothing irreversible. He simply needed to sweet talk to some Hufflepuffs – this Megan Jones girl carried his photo around, and Hannah Abbot blushed and stuttered when he was near– and the others, seeing how the kindest House regarded him, would soon retain their good opinion of Tom.

“Riddle!” The voice was familiar; the same voice Tom hadn’t heard addressed to him for several months.

He didn’t turn around yet the rushed huffing in Harry’s voice was unmistakable. Greengrass tightened her hold on his forearm and Tom wanted to snap at her to let go. The touch intruded on his privacy and made him want to shudder with revulsion.

“What is it, Potter? Shouldn’t you be scared to talk to a snake-talking, slimy Slytherin?” Malfoy drawled mockingly. The colour on his face had returned to its usual shade and his arms were crossed over his chest. He stabbed Harry with a glower that elicited only a raise of an eyebrow as a reaction.

“Leave it, Malfoy,” Zabini said sharply. His smooth voice silenced the arrogant blond immediately. Malfoy swallowed the insult at the tip of his tongue. “You did fuck up this time.”

“It was just him! Who cares about Potter?”

“You could kill any of us,” Nott argued calmly.

“I just wanted to thank you, Riddle.” Harry’s voice sliced through the beginning argument about him like a knife. “I wouldn’t be alive if not for you. I want you to know that no matter what everyone else here will say about your ability, I will always be your ally.”

Finally, Tom turned around, his lips parted slightly and eyes blinking rapidly. Warmth and sincerity were swimming in Harry’s green eyes, making them brighter and more beautiful than ever. The small smile on his face was so genuine that it went straight through Tom’s soul and he felt guilty for hesitating to use Parseltongue in front of everyone.

“How touching,” Malfoy sneered before leading Crabbe and Goyle out of the Hall, his hands pushing them in the backs.

Neither Tom nor Harry deemed him worthy to notice. Their eyes were locked together and this proclamation of friendship? Alliance? Loyalty? warmed Tom’s heart in ways nothing else could.

He nodded curtly in acceptance and Harry pushed through the Slytherins to the group of Ravenclaws plus Weasley and Longbottom waiting for him. Su Li fussed over him and Longbottom expressed his worry and Weasley enveloped him in a manly hug…

This day, throughout the meals and the times Harry and Tom encountered each other in the corridors, their eyes kept landing on each other.

XXX

_ December, 21st. _

Tom wasn’t accustomed to the snow on the King’s Cross. He kept making faces at the snowflakes that had the audacity to land on his nose and get into his eyes, at the slippery ground in some places that weren’t well cleaned –he found that muggles’ side of the station was much neater, to his devastation – at the annoying little children who yelped whenever they had the misfortune of getting in his way.

The news of his ability had somehow left the grounds of Hogwarts and travelled into the newspapers. Only the ignorant didn’t know now who Tom Riddle was.

Now, the boy could see Dark purebloods regarding him carefully, trying to make out his potential. He could see Light families steer clear of him, throwing wary or fearful glances in his direction. Many grandparents told their grandchildren the tales of a scary boy speaking with snakes who would take bad children away if they misbehaved, and the effects of those tales were apparent: littlest children scattered out of his way whenever he so much as glared at them.

“Look! My mother is there!” Zabini exclaimed and ran off to a beautiful woman waiting patiently on the platform. Tom followed with more decorum.

Her appearance didn’t take Tom’s breath away like it had happened with Harry that day before Sorting. Yet something inexplicably alluring lurked in the depths of her deep brown eyes, and the picture of the snowdrifts around her contrasted with the smooth dark skin gorgeously

Tom reminded himself that this woman had taken away the lives of seven males.

She smiled a dreamy smile which didn’t carry any warmth but attracted the attention of a muggle man passing by with his wife and a mudblood child in tow.

“Tom Riddle, I take it? My son has told me so much about you,” she said as a greeting. The melodiousness of her voice told Tom of many hours spent singing.

“I’m honoured to stay at your home this Christmas, Mrs. Zabini,” Tom said politely and took the offered hand.

“Are we going to stay here forever?” Zabini cut in with a displeased scowl. He was tapping his foot and his hands dug into his sides.

“Of course, dear. The portkey is here. The activation word is ‘allure’, Mr. Riddle.” The woman took three items out of her pocket, giving one to her son and keeping another to herself.

She placed an ornate golden locket with emeralds laid out to form an ‘S’ and Tom’s hand tingled with the magic from the object. It felt familiar, like a long-forgotten dream, and sent sparkles into his very core. He opened his mouth to ask about it when the Zabinis disappeared.

 _‘I’ll ask them later,’_ he promised to himself.

“Allure,” he said out loud, feeling stupid for talking seemingly to himself. A whirlwind of colours cloaked him and Tom found himself spinning in a galaxy of sounds and motley flashes of lights. His head ached and nausea rose up to his throat, and Tom felt trouble holding it all in, but he also knew he mustn’t vomit in front of that woman or Zabini no matter what...

As quickly as it started, it ended, and Tom dropped onto the grass-covered grounds of Zabini’s property.

The woman – _call me Maura, dear, it makes me sound younger_ – stretched out a hand to help him on his feet, Zabini was smirking at something as always, and the intimidating manor loomed over them like Hogwarts, except that snow-repelling charms made the surrounding look green and cheerful.

The S-shaped locket glinted in Tom’s tight hold like a gate to his new life.

 


	9. Secret Garden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To see my updating schedule, please go to http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2739191/Vallory_Russups :) At the very beginning of the page, I explain in detail when my updates come.

** Chapter 9. Secret Garden **

Tom’s days at Zabini Manor were spent in a peaceful silence. The huge building loomed over green expanses of tended lawns, and the boy had never once seen a soul pass by, magical or otherwise, during his long relaxing walks in the mornings.

Inside, he would occasionally hear Lady Zabini – Maura, as she insisted he called her – talking to herself or her son or a rare guest, yet the woman seldom showed her face in the manor, too preoccupied with snatching another rich husband, as Blaise had explained.

Tom never complained about this lack of human company. He relished in the chance to relinquish the tight hold on the mask he usually kept on to fool Hogwarts students, and in his mind this holiday bore resemblance to a brief respite in the unbearable routine of customary smiles and customary sugary hypocrisy.

Besides, the manor was filled with too many mysteries to explore for him to feel bored. The atmosphere of pleasing, soothing darkness appeased his frazzled nerves, the enchanting ghosts lured him in with beckoning to follow them, the twisting trails led to a number of hidden gazebos and secret places where Tom could spend time with an enthralling book and scones, and the oak doors never hid the chambers behind: everything in the manor opened up to the guest.

Hid no chamber but one.

“What are you doing standing _here_ of all places?” This voice usually made Tom want to kill things, and this one time didn’t sneak out of being an exception.

Tom’s posture didn’t change even as he heard the frown in the usually apathetic voice. Keeping his back straight and expression neutral, he continued gazing at the elaborate design on the only set of warded doors in the castle. Blaise’s annoying barking did nothing to quench the greedy admiration in Tom’s eyes as the boy absorbed the running webs of barely visible combinations of runes and numbers with unrelenting intension.

He could see _it_. Finally, after long hours of exercising since summer. A win. A small one, but still.

“Standing. You have already answered to your question.” A shapely eyebrow sprang up to Tom’s hairline. The boy had yet to look away from the compelling dance of symbols. “At the moment I am also breathing, thinking, living... existing. What else do you need to know?”

Tom saw the sneer on Blaise’s face with his back. A rustle from behind him later, his dark-skinned classmate gripped his shoulder almost painfully, probably in a pathetic attempt to get revenge on Tom.

“Never forget at whose mercy you are here, Riddle,” Blaise let out quietly through clenched teeth. “I gave you this chance, this opportunity of mingling with the right sort. I won’t stand for you humiliating me. Nor will I stand for you breaking into the forbidden chambers.”

“Have you become a guard dog?” Tom mocked, encircling Blaise’s hand with his own and clutching it just as tightly. For the first time he felt remorse for not getting any physical education – the sound of Blaise’s crunching bones would have been like music to his ears now. “Oddly fitting for you, now that I think about it. The way you always need to know of my whereabouts... Brings up certain questions.”

Blaise’s chocolate eyes blazed black before he wrestled his hand out of the painful hold and let it fall freely to his side. He straightened and Tom noticed with disgruntlement how the other boy looked taller than him and generally more impressive.

‘Physically. Muscle doesn’t matter a gnat if he has the brains of a Hagrid.’            

The awed accounts of the giant and his kindness didn’t impress Tom as much as they did Gryffindors.

“Your taunts stopped being so effective a while ago, Riddle. Do consider the change of the repertoire,” Blaise said strongly, trying to keep his face impassive. “Besides, Mother won’t appreciate you sneaking around. She always told me off for it when I was a child.”

“Have you considered the possibility that maybe she told _you_ off simply because as a child you were as aggravating as you are now?” Tom’s lips stretched in a mocking smirk and he revelled in the sight of Blaise’s flaring nostrils. His amusement was cut short when a pair of strong hands grabbed his collar and lifted him an inch from the floor.

He met hateful dark eyes calmly, with only a vague frown marring his stunning features. When Tom made an attempt to shake the hands off, they didn’t bulge. Belatedly, he realised that taunting his host mustn’t have been a good idea. Blaise couldn’t go back on his word about the hospitality and Christmas party but he _did_ control the wards in and around the house.

 _‘_ Still, it doesn’t justify this impudence.’

Cold fury burned its way in Tom’s stomach at the mortification of being manhandled. His teeth clacked and Blaise didn’t get a warning before a rush of carefully controlled magic rose from Tom’s being and charged on him.

“What the-“ The taller boy took a wobbly step back under the onslaught of unidentified force. He couldn’t protect himself from Tom’s angry magic directed by the boy’s spontaneous emotions, and choked when invisible power strangled him relentlessly, digging its fingers deeper and deeper into his neck.

At the macabre scene of Blaise’s helplessness, the triumphant gleam in Tom’s eyes blossomed and the boy’s expression of contentment couldn’t keep from rearing its ugly head.

“Haven’t I told you once?” Tom asked in a sickly sweet tone of voice. He took a step towards the figure of the fallen boy and crouched down next to Blaise. He lifted the dark-skinned boy’s chin with a finger, looking into the tormented and hateful glare that did nothing to faze him. Tom leaned in, his breath tickling Blaise’s ear and neck and causing a shudder to run down his spine. “I _hate_ people touching me.”

His magic flared sharply and Blaise’s moan of ‘fuck you, Riddle’ drowned in a string of whimpers and choked attempts to cry for help.  Fear prevented the boy from realising that he was the master of the manor and thus could summon the wards to close in on Tom.

‘Fool,’ Tom thought darkly, releasing the other boy and standing up to look impassively down on Blaise. ‘I will not allow anyone to ever grip me like that. I think that’s enough for him though. Now, how do I call all this power back?’

He furrowed his eyebrows and concentrated hard, ordering the magic to answer his call. He could see the other boy turn blue from all the strangling and feared that if he were to truly die, the consequences wouldn’t be favourable for Tom.

The magic had acquired a mind of its own by that time and was reluctant to go back to its caged state inside Tom’s body, so the boy took out his wand to get some help in this dangerous venture of taming the ancient power. A spell almost slipped out of his mouth before a snide invisible voice asked him, “Do you really want to rely on this useless piece of wood all the time? How pathetic. It controls your life, your magic. If you truly are as great as you think you are, can you prove it?”

‘Nothing controls me,’ Tom snapped in his mind, fury bubbling in his chest. He threw a glance at the wand and set his jaw with a surge of determination. He would do it. His wand was just a means, an instrument, but the real power lay inside himself, inside his very core.

The invisible voice wanted a proof? Fine. It would get it.

“You are mine,” Tom whispered to his magic, looking in concentration at Blaise and hearing it roar in reply. The boy clutched at the fabric of Tom’s trousers and trembled, yet Tom didn’t look away from the sturdy neck around which wrapped the ring of magic. “And you will obey me. I am your master and I don’t need this wood stick to make you come to the place you belong to.”

Initially, the magic struggled against his orders and behaved like a spoilt child told he needed to go home from a friend’s house. Yet, Tom’s pressure on it was indivertible. His entire mind focused on the swirling aura of magic, and he pushed his mental powers to get it all back in the confines of his magical core.

Reluctantly, the strangling force gave way to his stubbornness and single-minded purpose, relinquishing its hold on Blaise with an inaudible _snap_. Tom felt contentment stretch his lips in a smile that looked more like a smirk. He had succeeded! He really had the abilities that people thrice his age didn’t. This accomplishment of controlling a burst of accidental magic once again had established his superiority in regards of other people, most of who would have broken at the challenge.

Tom didn’t hold out his hand to help his fellow Slytherin. He watched dispassionately how Blaise gasped greedily for breath and struggled to stand up.

“You owe me now,” Tom drawled, getting Blaise’s attention.

“And, pray tell me, whose fault it was in the first place?” the dark-haired boy hissed, rubbing his stinging neck.

“What preceded my help doesn’t matter,” Tom cut short his starting rant and threw up his head. “The follow-up does. There is nothing I particularly wish for now but I _will_ notify you of my desires when the time comes. And remind you of your debt, of course.”

Blaise stood silent for a few moments before whispering quietly, “One day, I’ll throw you off your high horse. You can enjoy the delusions of your superiority for now. You can boast about this accident all you like, to anyone. And it will make my revenge only sweeter when I extract it.”

“What revenge?” Tom asked mockingly, absent-mindedly running his fingers through the wand in his pocket. “You mean you can ask the house elves to spit in my drink while I’m here?”

Blaise’s eyes flashed and his fingers balled into a fist before he took control of himself.

“Thanks for the idea. Mother wanted to see you,” he said curtly, swallowing the insult on the tip of his tongue, and whirled around on his heels. “She told me this an hour ago.”

With this, the boy stormed off.

‘Probably to write a whiney letter to his friends,’ Tom thought, not finding it in him to be angry at the delayed message. ‘If Maura really needs to see me, she will wait.’

He threw one long look at the warded door that had caused the whole argument in the first place. Its mystery still lured him in, and Tom swiped all the portraits on the wall with a glance. Some of them were snoring but others watched him warily. If he were to somehow find a way to break down the wards, he knew they would immediately alert the owner of the manor. Breaking in with them around was out of the question.

‘This means that I simply have to find a fool-proof way to clear the area up.’

A thought entered his head abruptly and Tom couldn’t keep himself from grinning victoriously. He remembered overhearing the Weasley twins talking about the Marauders and their exceptional abilities to break into any place, warded or not.

Surely, a Marauder’s son was bound to inherit at least some of this talent?

Tom didn’t notice he was humming as he went merrily for a talk with Lady Zabini, wondering what she would tell him.

The wards around the door shimmered mischievously.

XXX

“You wanted to see me?” Tom asked politely, heading to one of the comfy sofas. The lounge was his favourite room after the library, and he often came there when no one crowded it (which almost never happened).

Maura’s lips twitched slightly and she looked up from the newest issue of _Daily Prophet_. Tom noted a photo of him and a huge chunk of text next to it. Stifling a derisive sneer at what was probably another wondering article on him and his miraculous ability, he turned his attention on his hostess.

“You certainly didn’t hurry,” the woman remarked, gracefully crossing her legs. She placed the newspaper on the coffee table but let it remain open, revealing the laced with fresh ink pages. Tom’s eyes flickered to it once more but he saw nothing new in Rita Skeeter’s newest exploit.

“Your son held me back,” Tom said truthfully. He kept his voice mostly emotionless, only bearing that tint of arrogance that many purebloods typically used. The tone of authority, be it fictional or based on real accomplishments.

“Blaise?” A thin eyebrow shot up before Tom got a quirk of red lips. “My son does have this habit, yes. When he sees a threat to his standing, he is capable of malevolence untypical of a child his age.”

“A threat?” Tom forced out a charming laugh and an equally charming smile. He feared that his skills had gotten fairly rusty after the weeks of nearly complete anti-social bliss, so to prepare himself for another set of months full of pretending, ensnaring, manipulating, and scheming, he would need to resort back to his enthralling attitude and smiley masks directed at the people he wanted to rip apart deep inside. “To what, Lad- Maura. I am only a guest enjoying the liberties you give me in your splendorous abode. I can assure you that nothing has ever crossed my mind about harming you or your son here.”

‘Here,’ Tom thought with the stabs of vindictiveness threatening to shatter his false smile. ‘Doesn’t mean I can’t do it at Hogwarts if Zabini doesn’t stop making such a nuisance out of himself.’

Maura was watching him through hooded eyes, her dark hair falling to her shoulders in tight rings today and shielding one of her eyes. This posture of hers, the dim light in the lounge, the red velvet cushions and sofas, the soft rugs crating the imagery of a lush meadow... It all added to the intimacy of their discussion, creating the illusion of familiarity and affection that didn’t exist, urging him to loosen his tongue and let the woman in on all his secrets and overwhelming desires, even the deepest, the darkest ones.

Tom could easily comprehend how this tactic aided Maura Zabini to ensnare those legendary eight husbands.

‘Unfortunately for her, I am not falling into her trap. Not today. Not ever.’

He raised his chin high and quirked his lips, showing the appreciation in the admirable way she manipulated those around her, the way she wonderfully and masterfully played on the baser needs of men and made them forget themselves in her ministrations.

Why, even the smartest purebloods fell in her trap.

Pity that Tom wouldn’t join that shameful number anytime soon. The list would have to do without his name being added into it.

For a brief moment, her eyes showed surprise at his gleaming understanding before her smirk stretched like that of a cat’s. Tom’s face remained impassive and he didn’t let the calculative gaze throw him off.

“You are a fascinating young man, Tom,” Maura purred and stood up. As she walked, Tom could make out the shapely legs underneath her stylish robes. “I cannot wait what you will grow into.”

Tom watched her sit close to him on the sofa and willed his body to stay still when she leaned in, obviously used to constantly making bodily contact with other men from her experience of being a seductress, even when her intentions didn’t stink of intimacy.

He gulped down the revulsion at the idea.

No other living being would ever be good enough for him. Those solid walls of conviction pressed only closer on him when the woman took her hand in his.

“Patience is a virtue,” Tom remarked lightly and mentally applauded himself when his muscles didn’t twitch at the proximity.

“I would advise you to watch your back around my son. Just in case, of course,” the woman murmured, brushing a lock of hair out of Tom’s eyes. The boy twitched in irritation but kept silent, not allowing a streak of annoyance to cross his face. “He is a vengeful wizard. A trait he has gotten from his father, no doubt.”

‘And of course not from the witch said to kill every partner cheating on her.’

“May I ask you a question?” Tom’s polite voice cut through the ringing silence after her remark.

“Go on,” the woman urged, her long fingers running through Tom’s dark hair, the skin colour almost blending with Tom’s mane. “I specifically called for you, dear.”

“Exactly. Why? If it were instructions as to how to behave during the Ball, you could have sent the House Elf with them. I’m sure one of those creatures would have been delighted to be useful.”

“I need my elves for another purpose,” Maura muttered, but before Tom could demand for specifications, she changed the topic. “You can speak to snakes, right?”

She wasn’t asking. The stack of newspapers showing him in all poses and talking about his ability, expressed it all meaningfully. But what would the woman need from this talent?

Abruptly, she sprang to her feet and paced to the large window, pulling the heavy curtains on it apart to reveal the enchanting wolds around the manor.

“What is your attitude regarding muggles? And don’t bother being politically correct; I will place a charm securing that your opinions and views don’t leak out to the wide public.”

“Then do so,” Tom said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “I won’t rely on empty promises.”

Another thin smile. “I never expected anything less from you.”

Tom had never witnessed the binding of an Unbreakable Vow, yet he knew what had to be done during the ritual. Nothing much, actually. Most of the work belied on the person initiating the contract, Tom himself needing only to speak proper words and sound sincere.

“I swear on my magic that I will not disclose anything of what I hear in this lounge today,” Maura Zabini murmured, taking his hand in hers. The coldness of her hand made Tom wince but he didn’t remark on it. He felt rather than saw the binds of magic enfold their clenched arms.

Repeating the Vow, Tom didn’t show his anticipation, opting to keep his face maximally impassive. Purebloods valued patience and self-control, and he didn’t want to seem lacking in both respects.

“And I ask my question again, Tom. How do you feel about muggles?” Suddenly, she sounded demanding, her mild questions turning into commands.

Here, Tom hesitated. He hadn’t told anyone, not even his Slytherin classmates, his inner feelings. The repercussions for being disagreeable to muggles were too much for such a mundane subject.

Finally, he armed himself with courage.

“I hate them,” he confessed, surprised at hearing himself sound so simple and serene. “You could destroy every muggle on the Earth, and I wouldn’t feel a thing other than joy.”

“Perfect.” Maura licked her lips. Her eyes gleamed like a fanatics, and for the first time since arriving Tom felt this searching, calculative gaze on him. Having a feeling that nothing good could come out of this, the boy sat straighter and stared right into woman’s face unblinkingly.

“Have you ever heard of Dark Lords?” she asked.

Tom’s heart skipped a beat. Anxious, anticipation prickling in him, he nibbled on the inside of his cheek.

“A bit,” he lied, deciding to keep the hours of arduous research in the library secret.

“They are powerful visionaries who can bring purification to this world.”

“Purification from what?” Just to be sure.

“Muggles, of course.” Then she smiled. “But of course you have caught on.”

“So? Do you know one? A Dark Lord, I mean.”

‘Yes, please, tell me his name so I can destroy the competition.’

“A potential one is sitting right in front of me.”

Tom blinked and then blinked once more. Not believing his ears, he stared at the woman watching him with amusement dancing in her face. His carefully crafted mask of indifference fell apart at the astounding news. His throat constricting and going dry, he croaked out, “Don’t fool with me.” All the pretences at indifference fell away. “I know the games purebloods love playing. You want to plant those seeds of delusions in me, nurture them, watch them grow, and then ridicule me for having those hopeless dreams that can never become true.”

“And why should I deceive you?” No matter how much she wanted to sound genuine, the attempt failed. Curly eyelashes fluttered against the smooth dark cheek.

Tom scoffed, retaining control of himself. A Vow or not, it wouldn’t do to seem weak by this woman. Maura Zabini was a notorious trickster, whose arsenal included a wide range of traps and methods to step around the magical binding.

“There hasn’t been a Dark Lord since the times of Grindelwald,” he hissed, staring hard at the woman who didn’t look fazed. “And everyone knows how _that_ ended. I’ll never condemn myself to the same fate.” A small lie. But Tom would get to the end of it, would test just how far Maura’s resolutions for helping him and her support went. If he could somehow bring her to his side...

“You have the potential to be something greater than Gellert Grindelwald has ever been,” Maura whispered with a faraway look to her face.  Abruptly, she reached to the small pocket of her elaborate dark robes before pulling out a familiar S-shaped locket.

Tom’s breath hitched in his throat when the familiar, barely audible melody of magic caressed his ears. For a moment, its vibrancy drowned out the sounds of house elves’ hasty preparations for the supper, drowned out the rustling clothing of the people from the hung paintings, each of them leaning forward curiously to sneak a glance at the enchanting object.

He couldn’t look away and couldn’t stop hearing.

“Yes.” Another lipless smile and the shuffling of skirts later she shoved him the locket. Their fingers touched over the precious piece of jewellery and Tom saw Maura hold her breath reverently, stroking the brilliant emeralds before releasing the locket. “Your stricken expression articulates well that you can hear the magic in it. You may keep it.”

Tom snatched the object before she changed her mind, fondling it with possessiveness that astounded himself.

“Why this generosity?” he asked with suspicion. ‘The emeralds and the gold don’t look cheap...’

And he didn’t believe in the altruism of people.

“No need to thank me,” she chided lightly for his slight rudeness, shaking her head of full black curls. Tom sat as still and straight-backed as ever. “I am merely returning your rightful heirloom to you.”

Tom’s head snapped up and the blade of the calculative glint in his eyes sharpened.

“My heirloom?”

“Don’t you know that only Salazar Slytherin’s rightful sons and daughters have the ability to understand snakes?”

“Yes,” Tom replied curtly and nodded once, impatient. “Which means I must be his heir.” His pulse raced up and the rubbing of the object never ceased. He had an idea where this was going.

“I am glad I didn’t underestimate your intelligence and you figured this out yourself.”The woman shot up her hand to cut the interruption off. “As I was saying, this locket is one of the last pieces of heritage left to us by your honourable ancestor. It’s yours.”

Tom wished to soar right now. The pleasant singing in the heirloom purred, as if in agreement with Maura’s words and accepting him as its master.

“Do you hear it? The melody?” he asked suddenly, shifting in his seat to take a hold of the woman’s sleeve. He cringed at the notion of touching another person but urged her to sit down anyway because her piercing looks from the standing position ignited wariness in him.

“No. Only you can.” Complying, Maura took a seat on the sofa – Tom zealously guarded his precious inches of private space – and shook her head for emphasis.

At her words, Tom noted that indeed she had given no indication of being moved by the silvery sounds he now recognised as magic. He had chalked it off to the experience but obviously it wasn’t the case.

“And here we return to our initial topic,” she declared, shifting her dark cunning eyes on his own.

A moment of silent fell. They stared at each other for so long that their tries to outface each other weren’t subtle anymore and reeked of something crude and raw. Maura pursed her lower lip, Tom had the makings of a smirk on his face, and both turned away, neither admitting defeat but not wanting this silly child’s game to continue.

Strength, as much as Tom valued its raw form, bore more fruits in ingenious plans and careful scheming rather than in the open display of it.

“You chose me because of my ancestry,” Tom remarked, watching the sky outside. He had never been one for brooms, but the bright blue sky and its cloudless tranquillity inflicted on him this longing to fly his stress away. The earlier conflict with Blaise had tired him out, leaving strange hollowness in the place where burning anger used to be for that one moment.

He didn’t feel guilty for the rightful punishment meted out but this light-headedness wasn’t what he had aimed for.

“Once again, you are right. I admit that at first the news of your intrusion on the Christmas with my son didn’t lighten my mood.” She held out her thin hand and examined the perfectly manicured nails. The sentence didn’t sound anything other than simple statement. “And had you been any other student, however brilliant or ambitious or promising, I would have hated you immediately.”

“Hated me,” Tom repeated, the words rolling on his mouth. He watched her, entranced by the soft-spoken words and the revelation of truth coming out of the woman. “Exactly for my brilliance.”

“As a mother, I abhor seeing people surpass my son.” She stretched her lips in a cat-like smile.

“And now?” Tom fingers gripped his wand tightly, just in case. “What do you think of me now?”

She turned her misty eyes to him and threw him a coy look from beneath the fluffy eyelashes. “As a muggle-raised,” here her upper lip curled up, “you might not understand it, but to us ancestry is everything. You come to this world with a stigma of being one kind of a wizard or another, and few can escape their destiny or change it. Consequently, people, purebloods especially, will heed you if you give them a push to do so.”

‘It’s insanity,’ Tom thought in disbelief, eyes abnormally wide and heart thrumming in his chest. The thoughts in his head clashed with one another, making it impossible for his mind to fully grasp any, sans this one. ‘What she is saying is insanity.’

And yet where was this giddiness sprouting from, taking him away on its metaphorical wings? Tom resisted the hopeful feelings blooming inside of him – why would anyone share this information with him, willingly, no less – and stamped the thought that no one would help him, that he trusted nobody and would accept no help from anyone, deep into his mind, yet the efforts crashed into the steely wall of greed for power that could come if he chose to follow Maura’s plan.

“Many Dark purebloods don’t fully believe _the Prophet_ ,” Tom found himself saying. He was seizing the last straw to remain in the blissful state of planning. All his previous desires to become the Dark Lord and rule over people were giving in to the sudden hesitation that plunged at him at the swiftness with which everything was going out of control.

“Oh, but that’s what my party is for.” Maura chuckled at his pursed lips and troubled, torn countenance. “Did you honestly think that only allegedly Light wizards and those who have the Ministry in their pocket go there? Dear, you must be full of illusions.”

“I never gave much thought to the rumours...” Tom trailed off. Taking control of himself, he looked into the eye of the dark-skinned woman, not surprised to see the mocking glint in them. He had acted weak, he knew.

“Of course, I don’t go as far as to deposit the wanted Dark wizards with bounties for their heads in the open. They will be mingling in a heavily-warded chamber where not even Dumbledore can find them. Not that he attends such gatherings.”

Tom scoffed at the old man’s behaviour.

‘To lose such opportunities... If I had the same political and magical power, I would strengthen it instead of merely leaving everything to the chance.’

Alas, Tom’s plans and schemes would only begin to unfold on Christmas Eve and no sooner, so he could do nothing about his own influence yet.

“We don’t want him attend anyway,” Tom reminded her in an arrogant tone, leaning back against the soft velvet cushions. Crossing his legs elegantly, he put a thin finger under his chin and stared at the woman with returned confidence. “Certainly, from what you have told me, I gather that you want me to meet all those... peculiar guests and impress them?”

“You catch on quick,” she purred and Tom watched the way her eyes hooded. He realised that she was so used to constantly flirting and seducing that even now, while talking to a twelve-year-old, she didn’t give up her trickster moves.

“Why such wish to make me into a Dark Lord though? The most powerful figure in the Wizarding World?”

“I simply want to help you. Isn’t this a good enough reason?” She batted her eyelashes innocently, the artificial gesture not hiding the amusement and mocking radiating from her body language.

Tom stabbed her with an expressive glower and she threw her head back in a laugh, hair flinging back.

“Today, muggles are everywhere. They have wormed their way into the most important aspects of wizarding life, and we must always watch out for accidental magic or for casting spells in any city. Our entire lives revolve around those wretched creatures inferior to us in all ways imaginable.” Serious now, she paused before adding, “That’s the official pureblood reason.”

The question on the tip of Tom’s tongue was “then what is your personal reason?” but he didn’t voice it. He knew useless moves when he saw them.

“The last thing I want to ask you...” His eyes darted to a bleak photograph of Lady Zabini holding a Charms and Potions Tournaments Cup.

“Ask away, dear. The Vow protects us, so everything you tell or ask me here today will safely be buried in its secretive embrace.”

“Teach me some useful charms and spells,” he demanded. No use pretending to be patient and congenial with her, after what she had seen of him.

She tilted her head, hair moving to cover her eye, and scrunched up her beautiful face in a frown.

“I fear that you are too weak yet to be prepared for the Charms I can teach you. My level is far higher than that of any Hogwarts teacher’s, and only one person has ever surpassed me in this subject, so I won’t train you until you give me the proof of your powers other than Parseltongue-“

“Is accidental magic almost killing your son enough of a proof?” Tom cut her off with an impatient scowl on his face. Hungrily, his gaze roved over her quickly changing face until it was paler than muggle paper and filled with fear mixed with anger.

“In my house! You dare-“

“ _Almost_ , my Lady,” Tom reminded her mildly and his impassiveness morphed into a jolly fake smile. He gloated at the comeback for his earlier moment of weakness and hesitation, and the utter humiliation he had felt for it. “Your son is as good as new, just with a lesson on how to pull out foreign objects stuck up his backside.”

Maura’s lips twitched a little but her eyes were as uncertain as before.

“My son is jealous. He won’t be happy to hear about the lessons...”

_‘Who cares?’_

Tom certainly didn’t.

XXX

“What is this hassle for?” Tom groused out in the wee hours of morning, mustering up all the strength he had not to start dizzily swaying to the side with the morning fatigue.

House elves were constantly popping here and there, their puny arms filled with boxes of all sizes. One of the skeletal creatures whimpered under the weight of a particularly large box and tripped, making Tom sneer in disgust. Immediately, the elf stood up and banged its head on the wall, all the while whining about not letting it happen ever again.

A minute later, after another elfish apparition, the thing fell down again. The process repeated.

“Occasionally, they can be useful,” Blaise remarked from his plate full of delicious bacon.

“Obviously, this day isn’t today.” Tom scoffed into his delicate cup of aromatic tea and spread out _the Prophet_ , ignoring the other boy’s scowl of offense.

He wished he could have mornings like this one at the orphanage, the ones filled with sweet tranquillity and informative reading. True, the elves didn’t thrill him much, but today was a unique occasion.

“The warder is coming today,” Blaise deigned to answer Tom’s question at last. “Mother must have told you. She tells you everything now, right? And teaches you spells, too.”

The boy didn’t bother masking his resentment for Tom and jealousy, at which the Slytherin heir only smirked into his brownie. Ready to snap a mocking retort, Tom opened his mouth which snapped shut a second later, interrupted by a noisy arrival.

“Your home is as beautiful as ever, Ms Zabini,” drawled a smooth baritone that Tom didn’t recognise. The boy perked up and put aside the remains of the sweet treat, passing a napkin through his mouth and looking as immaculate as ever.

“And how many times have I told you to call me Maura, dear?”

 Tom scoffed at the flirting tones and could easily envision fluttering eyelashes and plump lips curled into a seductive smile. From what he had heard, the woman set her eyes on a prominent man from high society, yet apparently this small issue didn’t deter her from her trademark promiscuity.

‘No surprise here. I would be startled if she didn’t attempt to seduce a single man with a twinge of political power or money in him.’

His eyes narrowed in disgust, and suddenly the food he had swallowed was threatening to escape his mouth. Forcing it all back down – it wouldn’t do to show this appalling level of rudeness in the posh settings of the manor – he concentrated on the prominent vein on Blaise’s forehead and on the slowly approaching soft footsteps.

“Enough times that I can recite your usual speech in my sleep.” The ever-polite baritone remained as calm as it had been despite the obvious flirting attempts from the woman. “I know the way to the second ballroom by now; you don’t need to accompany me anymore.”

At Tom’s asking glance, Blaise explained, “Regulus Black is the best warder in the community. I find your knowledge of those basic things quite lacking, Riddle. You might consider reading up on it; your mudbloodiness is getting through whatever image you are attempting in vain to built.”

“This is an adorable insult I will give you every time you fail your Charms classes. With your Mistress of a mother, it looks even more pathetic.”

“Not everyone must be a bloody genius, Tom Riddle,” a third voice interrupted, just when Blaise’s face went a puce colour.

For a moment, Tom didn’t believe his ears. Heart squeezing out a thump, he turned his head to three people marching into the room. His eyes dismissed the dark-skinned woman and the slightly-ruffled, ridiculously tall man, zeroing in on a bony figure of his classmate.

“Potter,” Tom acknowledged stiffly, realising he needed to stop acting like a Hufflepuffish idiot and talk. Lips twitching in a semblance of a smile, the green-eyed boy nodded in response.

Blaise and Harry greeted each other briefly, while Maura urged Tom to come closer. Rising from his seat under the observant gaze of light grey eyes, Tom neared the pair standing at the doorway. He felt the boys behind him stop with the boring small talk to watch the proceedings. Suddenly, anxiousness shrouded Tom as he heard nothing but utter silence surrounding him, his footsteps muffled by the ornate rugs of the dining-room.

“This, my dear, is Tom Riddle,” Maura murmured, wrapping her hand around the pureblood wizard’s arm. The sickly pallor of his skin, unnatural tallness, and almost white eyes that reminded Tom of Ollivander, made a striking contrast with her soft curves, smooth dark skin, and sensuous lips. “The boy I have told you so much about.”

This statement snatched Tom’s interest immediately. He craved for more knowledge about what happened behind the closed doors of Maura Zabini’s study – where she didn’t spend that much time, mind you, as busy as she was with ensnaring another husband – and this was a perfect opportunity. Add to this Potter’s watchful presence, eyes glued to Tom’s back, and the morning was turning out not like such a failure.

With renewed mental powers and a sudden spark of good mood, Tom jerked up his chin and stared right into the thin face.

“Regulus Black,” the man drawled after a short silence filled with a covert battle of gazes. Tom noticed the small smirk play on the other’s face, and countered it with one of his own. “Your fame exceeds you, Mr. Riddle. I cannot begin to count the times I have encountered mentions of you in newspapers.”

‘At least, they are serious editions such as the _Prophet_ and _Daily Wizard_. I’d probably suicide if they ever printed me in the _Witch Weekly_.’

“All lies, of course,” Tom said out loud, flashing a coy look upwards. “No one can be foolish enough to believe that snakes will willingly let me eat them for breakfast, dinner, and supper.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Tom caught Harry’s slight grin.

“Who knows?” the only Ravenclaw in the room piped in, leaning on the ridiculously high back of the manor’s chair. Tom frowned when the boy sneaked a brownie and popped it into his mouth. “After all, no one can tell what you are hissing about with them.”

“But my _hissing_ does help when it is needed,” Tom remarked, suddenly aggravated.

“Only that one time.”

“Who says it will _stay_ the only time? One day, you might come running to me like a damsel in distress begging for salvation.”

Harry snorted and shook his head. For a second, Tom marvelled at the silky locks before noticing what kinds of feelings were running through his head, and furiously stamping them out of his head.

“Whatever you dream of, Tom.” The green-eyed boy threw a fleeting look at the man he had arrived with. “Lady Zabini, Uncle Reg-?”

The imposing man waved him off imperiously, his dark grey eyes boring into Tom and disregarding his charge. “You may go. Lady Zabini will not mind.”

“Just take care not to wander into a warded room,” Blaise supplied, coming up to the shorter boy. “Those curses that hang you by your entrails can be particularly nasty, I heard. And witnessed.”

Harry grimaced and flinched, casting an inquisitive glance in Tom’s direction, probably wondering how the Slytherin was surviving in there. Tom responded with a rise of an eyebrow.

“Now I’m grateful I’ve already had breakfast. Need to thank Kreacher for stuffing all those cereals into me.”

The question of who Kreacher was danced madly on the tip of Tom’s tongue, but the boy understood that now wasn’t the time to ask questions, especially personal ones that concerned Harry’s admittedly mysterious home life.

“If you fear coming across one of the traps or warded areas – of which there aren’t many – I can show you around the castle,” Blaise offered in an unusual show of gallantry, fingers casually touching the other boy’s thin arm before wrapping themselves around it entirely, just like his mother’s had done with Black’s.

Harry didn’t give it much thought, his teeth nibbling on his bottom lip in consideration.

“If I remember correctly, you have a charming garden,” he said finally and stared expectantly at Blaise who simply shrugged in response.

“Well, it’s not as nice as Malfoy’s multiple gardens-“

“Figures they could be satisfied with a single garden.”

“-Ours does have some charm to it,” Blaise finished and took a step outside the spacious dining-room. Feeling ignored, Tom fumed but followed both boys. He had been planning on talking to Harry – about this proclamation of alliance and what it entailed, among other things – so he held on to this opportunity, even if the other boy seemed to ignore him.

“Blaise!” Maura’s voice called out before they could walk out. Three heads turned to the source of it, Tom’s face morphed into a scowl of impatience. “Stay here. I’d like to talk to you after this.”

Her intonation gave away the fact that nothing good would be discussed.

Tom had to hide his smirk at that.

Blaise had taken to the use of small tricks and traps just to tick Tom off. The pureblood would secretly order the elves to mess with his guest’s clothing, covering it in a disgusting, sticky mess. Sometimes, Tom would find a long roll of parchment filled with his neat writing torn and loaded with splotches of ink the boy hadn’t left there. Not counting the numerous times he had to wake up to the shrill screaming of ghosts and paintings, all of whom had confessed to be doing it on Blaise’s orders.

Those small revenges didn’t truly harm Tom in any way; with his vast knowledge of nifty little spells and charms, the sleaze on his clothes vanished easily, ghosts and paintings shut up with quick _Silencio_ s, and parchments fixed themselves with _Reparo_ s and Cleaning Spells.

But Tom would be damned if he let anyone show such appaling lack of respect to him.

Having no qualms in admitting his unwillingness to deal with lesser, undeserving problems, not to mention going through the humiliation of retaliating as childishly, he had simply hexed Blaise and went to Maura, telling her everything her son had done. Not to look like an offended four-years-old, he had expressed it in such a light that only his disappointment in Blaise’s un-Slytherin ways had driven Tom to go whining to his mother, and of course not the boy’s own laziness to deal with it.

Tom had craved to watch Maura tear into her son, but this wasn’t as pressing now as the desire to talk to Harry.

“I know where the gardens are,” he drawled, his features schooled into the natural by now boredom. “Shall I show you to them?”

Harry peeked up at him – Tom was about a head taller, which brought a smug smirk to his mouth sometimes – and held his eyes for a moment, then sighed and shrugged. “Sure.”

“I will complete the warding in about three hours,” Regulus Black warned, to which Harry nodded, the boy’s feet already carrying him away. “Remember to be back here by that time.”

“Of course, Uncle,” Harry threw to his... older acquaintance? Family friend? Something else? Ah, Tom’s didn’t know. The lack of facts annoyed him. The Potter heir’s words addressed to him aggravated him only further. “So, Riddle? Are we going or do you wish to stay here forever? I understand that watching house elves cleaning the table might be an engaging activity but-“

Tom silenced him with a glower and by dragging the shorter boy to the long corridor that interconnected with the other ones and eventually led to the famed Zabini garden which, although fairly small compared to others, ignited imagination with the rarest – and mainly poisonous – plants and flowers.

“You behaved differently after I saved you,” Tom sniped at Harry, not noticing the other boy’s thoughtful glimpse at their locked hands. “Where are the proclamations of alliance gone to?”

Harry blinked a few times, a smirk reeking of amusement slowly spreading on his face.

“Did you honestly believe I’d call you ‘my hero’ for the entirety of our lives?” he asked incredulously, cocking his head, their pace fast and energetic as they glided through the corridors. “I _was_ emotional at the time; but any other person who has just escaped the clutches of death would be.”

Tom nodded briskly, not pausing in his footsteps. “Then remember that it was I to rip you away from those same clutches. Don’t forget that I sacrificed my good name to keep you from dying, and your ungratefulness shows not only your lack of manners, but also offends all the ancient laws of life debts.”

“I don’t disregard it,” Harry whispered, his voice so low Tom could barely hear it. The taller boy stopped. “You can’t imagine how many times I have returned to this moment in my mind, can’t imagine how vivid the picture of the fangs ready to sink into me is. My promises of being an ally to you stay true. Don’t doubt them even for a second.”

Turning around, lips parted in surprise at hearing the words spoken so truthfully – perhaps for the first time he was truly glimpsing into Harry’s mind – Tom surveyed the green eyes dimmed with recollection and the faraway look on the boy’s face.

Abruptly, the dreaminess surrounding Harry dispersed and the emotion in those eyes sharpened as his chin rose up and dainty hands found their way to his sides.

“The vow of alliance is a fair repay of my life debt. It means that when the time you are truly stuck comes, I will go to the greatest lengths to ensure the fulfilment of my debt and to pull you out of whatever hole you’ve schemed yourself in.”

“How touching-“

“It does _not_ ,” Harry interrupted Tom’s starting sneering speech, glaring at the older boy hotly, “mean that out of blue I’ve become you slave or servant grovelling at you mighty feet. You will treat me with the same respect you would give any other person- well, knowing you, there can’t be much respect, but at least I hope you try.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Tom demanded, resuming his pace. And here went his avid dreams of making Harry publicly humiliate Longbottom. The boy’s brows furrowed and he refused to sniff in distaste because that would make him look too much like mudblood Granger.

Harry eyed him warily, replying, “Judging by your disappointed expression, I suppose my thinking didn’t fail me and you _were_ entertaining ideas of me hurting my friends.”

“How delightfully observant of you,” Tom gibed, throwing a fulminating side glare behind him.

“Not at all,” Harry replied mockingly. Spread into a smirk, his lips showed white teeth. “You just might want to work on your facial expressions.”

Just as Tom was about to think up a comeback, his sight caught the familiar glass doors that led to the garden. He scowled and tramped to push them open, flicking a look at Harry. “Ladies first,” he drawled mockingly, making a slight bow in Harry’s direction.

Harry strode past him without a second glance only to stop short at the breathtaking sight of live flowers surrounding them now.

“Beautiful...” The words fell past Harry’s lips as the boy watched, entranced, the moving kaleidoscope of petals and leaves crawling and shaking, acting like sentient beings. Demon’s Snare spread its tentacles to catch a bud of a purple lily, but in the last moment the burgeon moved away from the grasp. The other plant metaphorically pouted.

A tree never stopped shedding bright rainbow-coloured leaves that concealed the ground below entirely by now. Another, the one to the side of a vintage-looking bench, bore fruit so heavy that the branches could barely hold them, leaning towards the ground so much you could reach with a hand to grab one. Tom wouldn’t risk eating them, though. He was aware that the brightest of colours could hide the deadliest of poisons.

But this wasn’t the thought running through his mind at the moment.

Unable to stop observing the mesmerised boy, Tom greedily drank in every feature in other’s face, which reminded him of that first time during the Sorting.

“Are you satisfied now?” Tom finally asked, stomping out the unwillingness to break this rare and fragile moment of peace between them. Patiently, he waited for Harry to shake off the stupor and look at him with awareness.

“Very,” Harry confirmed seriously. Turning away, he walked to the bench and wiped it with his hand, a few leaves and smaller fruits dropping on the turquoise grass. He plopped down on the now clean seat and motioned for Tom to join him.

“Why this sudden love for flowers, Potter?” Tom kept the snide out of his tone for once. Snappishness didn’t work with Harry and had no place outside of his mind because Tom knew that to thrall allies and to mingle in the high society he needed to keep his mask on constantly, not pausing for a moment. Even a brief respite from his acting could mean the collapse of all the lies Tom had been feeding the population of Hogwarts, especially the members of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.

Thus, Tom hated Harry, with whom restraining his real ambitions and real character posed a problem he didn’t experience with any other person.

‘Maybe, the Potters have a special ability?’ Tom reflected glumly, the recollections of the people admiring Harry, mostly from afar, springing to his mind. ‘Like my Parseltongue. Only, they can wrap others around their little fingers. I have to find out how to do this.’

Of course, the thought that Tom might as easily fall victim to this ‘ability’ never crossed his mind.

“I love plants,” Harry revealed, and Tom turned his attention to him incredulously, at a loss as to why Harry was suddenly speaking about it. Tom didn’t find the discussion of damned _flowers_ fascinating in the least. “Sometimes, I think plants can be more alive than people.”

Tom swept the scenery around them with a bored glance. “Considering how the carnivorous plants move quicker than Longbottom could ever hope to and have more brains than this female version of Weasley, yes, I’d say they seem full of life.”

Tom feigned disinterest when in reality he anticipated Harry’s reaction at the jibe at his best ‘friends’.

“It wasn’t a direct meaning.” A frown crossed his forehead as Harry shot a fleeting glower that didn’t faze Tom. “And why do you keep sniping at Neville? Honestly, the guy has never hurt a fly!”

“Exactly,” Tom hissed, his previous boredom vanishing to give way to the suffocating anger. “There is nothing special about him, that sorry excuse for a pureblood. The Longbottoms must be ashamed of giving birth to this disgrace! The long centuries of proud history gone with the appearance of this hare-brained idiot, whose only merit is his relative achievements in Herbology. A talent that could have gone to someone else, not waste on him!”

Stopping short, in fear of saying something Tom would regret, the boy breathed hard and refused to meet the other boy’s gaze. How embarrassing. He wanted to strangle something at his own failure.

Harry watched the outburst with an impassive face. Only the flickers of fury in his eyes and the set of his jaw revealed his true feelings on the matter.

And then, he blinked. A surprised gasp flew out of Harry’s mouth before his lips broke into a smile. Soon, he was laughing and laughing, seemingly unable to stop. His pale hands were clutching at his stomach and he bent down, struggling to wipe the tears of laughter away from his eyes.

‘Is he even sane?’ Tom asked himself in bewilderment and hesitantly reached Harry’s shoulder to snap the boy out of it, thus shortening the distance between their bodies. ‘I knew I should have dragged him away from those Gryffindor friends of his. They obviously don’t influence him positively.’

“Potter,” Tom murmured urgently, taking the boy’s shoulders into a firmer hold, and shook Harry as hard as he could. “Do I have to call for your godfather? Or whatever he is?”

His words had a magical effect and, to Tom’s relief, stopped the giggling madness. Harry threw off the hands and shook his head, hair in disarray and laughing eyes gleaming brilliantly.

“You are jealous,” he croaked out and coughed. Next words were coming out less like gibberish and more like human speech. “I can’t believe it! The local prodigy, the immaculate teacher’s pet Tom Riddle is jealous of Neville Longbottom! Ron will laugh his arse off at the hilarity of it!”

With a dangerous and warning hiss, Tom grabbed a thin arm and leaned into Harry’s face to threaten, “If you value your life, you will not tell anyone of this.”

The wide smile on Harry’s face had compressed into a small grin by now, and the boy shook his head once more, muttering something unintelligible.

“Fine. Worry not; I’m not going to run around screaming about Tom Riddle’s little fears. What’s the issue between you and plants though? You look as though Dumbledore forced a batch of lemon drops down your throat each time someone mentions Herbology.”

Harry’s voice carried nothing but genuine interest, which urged Tom to reply truthfully for once.

“Longbottom does better than me at this subject,” he hissed, brown eyes narrowing and daring Harry to comment on it. The younger boy wisely kept silent. “Should I add anything else?”

For a minute, a silence fell. It wasn’t the awkward type as much as the one when they both had something to think about.

“You know,” Harry broke the ice, “Neville doesn’t have many opportunities to shine. You noticed it yourself.”

“It’s hard not to,” Tom muttered but an irritated glance from Harry muted him. The green-eyed boy sighed before continuing.

“He had a difficult relationship with his grandmother who can’t see him as anything but the extension of her son, which has taken away all of his confidence in himself. Still, he has a heart in the right place and it helps him immensely.” Harry looked at him meaningfully. “Had you been a different kind of person, you could have been brilliant in Herbology, too.”

“I don’t see the connection,” Tom drawled in faked boredom.

Harry drew back and his eyes widened. “You don’t know? Then again, you were raised by muggles... And Professor Sprout never explained it on her lessons...”

“Just get to the point!” Tom snapped, folding his arms on his chest.

“The purity of heart and intentions of a person influence directly the compliance of plants. The kinder you are, the more willingly they submit to you.” Harry’s eyes lit up when an idea came into his head. “Look, instead of telling you this, I can show you!”

“What?” Tom asked inelegantly, thrown off his balance. He frowned in confusion but followed the other boy to the depths of the garden. They arrived at a tiny clearing with low-growing flowers littering the ground, some hiding in the high multi-coloured grass.

Potter crouched in front of a beautiful white flower resembling a lily, only in miniature. After some hesitation, a scowl now plastered firmly on his face, Tom followed suit.

“What now?” he bit out, feeling only scepticism and disbelieve that this kindness thing was going to work. Was Harry about to show him how to hug the plant?

“You should change your attitude,” Harry remarked, reaching with his finger to stroke a wilting petal. “They sense this and don’t like it.”

‘Do I look like I care about the opinion of plants?’ Tom’s further sarcastic thoughts were swept away when he caught the petal perk up. With wide brown eyes he watched the flower regain it energy and move up a bit, as if with the wind, to Harry’s finger, like a purring cat.

A joyous smile played on Harry’s mouth, the one Tom rarely saw but which took his breath away. He surveyed the boy as he laughed when the flower’s attempts to rub against his hand got more and more noticeable and downright forceful.

“Now, you try, Tom,” Harry called and pulled the finger away, laughing when the lily-lookalike bent down as if in a pout. “Remember: concentrate on nice thoughts.”

‘Nice as in torture and politics and gore?’ Tom didn’t risk voicing this.

He moved towards the flower and roughly seized it, not caring about a damaged petal or two. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Harry’s eyebrows pull into a frown.

“No, you are doing it all wrong-“

“Ouch!”

The plant decided to take revenge.

Tom cradled his stinging palm to his chest, all the while glaring at the mockingly white flower. Once again, he swore to never trust anything in Zabini’s house. He just hoped it didn’t contain any poison.

Harry tsked and took Tom’s hurt hand in his. “You’ll be all right,” he said a moment after inspecting it.

“Of course I will, you twat,” Tom bit out and rubbed the spot the “lily” had bitten.

“Look, I’m not surprised.” Harry snorted into his fist. “You have about as much kindness in you as a dead vulture. In poor plant’s place, I’d run at the sight of you.”

“If you are planning to continue mocking me-“

“Sorry. Just couldn’t hold it in.”

Harry observed the fuming Tom and sighed, putting his hands on his knees. He cocked his head, eyes clouding in thought, before another “brilliant” idea struck him. Wary of dealing with another mild injury, Tom eyed him cautiously.

“Place you hands on it!” Harry ordered, acting unusually excited. Tom would have like to think the boy was eager to help him, but had a hunch that his Ravenclaw nature was speaking up, and Tom himself was just an experiment.

Regardless, the Slytherin complied.

Before he could question what the brat was up to, he felt another set of hands covering his, the warmth pleasant as much as it was unexpected.

Tom raised his eyes at Harry, even forgetting to look condescending in all his surprise. His breath got caught in his throat – oh, when would it stop doing so – at the brilliancy of green and the general delight coming off the boy in strong vibes. A wave of sudden affection swept across him. He realised that if he was ever going to see another person more than a chess piece on the board, this was the only human to ever gain this high regard.

“Look down,” Harry whispered, his voice sounding intimate.

Tom did as told, wondering at his complacency today, and his eyes rounded at the sight of the burgeon they had ridiculously wrapped their hands around, blossom into a spectacularly white large flower. Tom felt it shift under his hands, and the experience was majestic, as if he himself was giving life to this small particle of nature. The petals breathed against his skin and their velvety structure could compare only with that of the palms above his hands.

Somehow, this was akin to discovering the secret of life itself.

“Do you understand now, Tom?”

Tom doubted he could ever repeat this experience on his own, yet the memory of this day, of this moment when life was flourishing in his very palms, under the guidance of a person he would come to hold dear, would always stay with him.

...So engrossed in their activities, neither of the boys gave thought to another, scrutinizing them with his almost black eyes.

 


End file.
